The Adventures of Ladies No Kids

My friend Sarah and I are planning adventures. We are going travelling. We are living our best lives. We are Ladies No Kids and we do what we want.

This year we have a few short trips planned, and a cruise.

CRUISE TIME.

We will be having a tropical Caribbean later this fall and I am stupid excited about it.

We will be travelling to the Pacific Northwest at some point as well. We need to hit Northern California, Oregon and Washington. Canada and Alaska are also on the itinerary. (Gonna see the Northern Lights bitches!) The East Coast is part of our adventures too. Vermont! New York! Maine! Sea Food! Light Houses! SO MUCH PRETTY SHIT.

I can’t stand how excited I am about this. I’ve bemoaned my lack of adventure for long enough. It’s been decided that these things will happen. I’m tired of missing the good things.

Stay tuned. We will be sharing our adventures. We will be taking pictures and having THE BEST TIME.

The Adventures of Ladies No Kids is beginning.

 

Three Things

So I have this “game: I like to play sometimes with my friends. I usually start it if I’m feeling a little poopy pants but I’ve also been known to throw it out randomly or if friends seem a little poopy pants. Anyway, the game goes “Quick! Three Things!” and the goal is to quickly list three things you have gratitude for, or makes you happy or feel good. It’s something I learned to help combat my depression and I’ll be damned, when I’m consistent, it makes a difference.

So yesterday, I got tossed a similar Three Things challenge. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”. Wow. I’d been asked that question before, but it was a long time ago and life looked very different then. I was a mess way back in the day. “She was lucky to make it to lunch” is how I believe she described the me from that time. Not inaccurate. And at the time it kind of blew my mind. Such a simple question but man oh man the answers I had then were so very very eye opening. I don’t recall the exact answers I gave but it was pretty much “everything” and “be happy”. So, about 15 or 16 years later everything is different. I can make it to lunch just fine. Most days. And I’m happy. Most of the time. And I have, am and will do as many of the things I never thought I could do because of fear. Notice I didn’t say I was free of fear. Nope. Still there. I’m sure like depression, general bad attitude and naturally high volume level, it’s always going to be a part of me. Thankfully I don’t always let it lead me around by the nose anymore.

So let’s play!

Quick! Three Things: Gratitude Edition! (Since this is a blog you can participate without needing to pause the thing, so go on, write three things down)

  • Clean, running hot and cold water in my house
  • My animals (yeeees, even the cats)
  • Music

Quick! Three Things: Fear(less) Edition!! (Come on now, don’t be poopy pants! Write some things!)

  • Learn how to play the guitar, and maybe even sing along with it.
  • Skydive
  • Fall in love again

Yesterday one of my answers to the Fear(less) Edition was different. It was “Quit my job and be a full time artist”. Boy that one is scary. I’m sorta kinda in a teeny tiny little bitty way working on that. I did open the Etsy shop after all. And I am working on things in my art room. It’s slow but I’m taking action. And I know what I’ve got in the shop isn’t really art. I like making fun jewelry too. But that’s the ultimate goal with the shop. Have more than just some cute jewelry things up there, but some well crafted artful pieces, as well as just Artsy Things. Maybe even one day have my own site instead of a little bitty spot in Etsy-Land.

ANYWAY, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. We can all thank my buddy AL for making me think about that stuff again. Even blogging the shit. This whole blog thing is just so awkward to me, but I also like it. And it’s also a little scary. So if any person actually really did in fact read this, comment with your six things! Please?

 

Problems and Solutions

Hi hello good morning how are you?!?!

Almost six am and got me a wild hair to write some shit down here. It may not be of much importance, but for 2019 one of the pseudo-resolutions I’ve sorta given myself (taken on? decided to try? implement? what is a good phrasing here?) is to fucking follow through with shit. I have great ideas all the time. I get solutions to what ails gifted to me for free daily. The revelations I am presented that will improve and change me and my world for the better are on the reg (do the kids still say that?). But do I take advantage? Do I move my ass, get in gear and do the shit? Hell no!! Why the fuck not? No idea!! But 2018 was the Year of Doing Stuff and that shall continue and so 2019 is gonna head towards The Year of Follow Through. Because (here is where it gets deep y’all) the solution to all my slow burn problems, the ones we all have, the ones we wallow in, roll around in and rub on our faces, ones we piss and moan and cry and want so different but ‘it’s too haaaarrrd’ (heh, she said, heh), these kinds of problems have a solution that is very near at hand. I mean so close. As close as I am. Which is right fucking here. Catch my drift? You get what I’m sayin’? You know what I mean? You know what I mean. All I have to do is take some fucking action man, and I even know which action to fucking take. So, follow through on some shit. I am scared and lazy and doubtful and even sickeningly content (ew) not taking the action because I delusionally feel it’s easer to stay sitting in my poopy diaper of self-pity instead of just getting my ass UP and DOING SOMETHING. Christ Almighty why do I resist when I know exactly what resisting gets me every single time? Jeeeeesus. Ok. Here I go. Will report back.

HOLIDAYS, New Years Eve, etc…..

Welp, holiday times. Weeeeee. I used to get pretty worked up over holidays and all the shit that goes into it. All the presents, food, parties, decorations, hell, I even played Christmas music. (It was strictly one album, the Peanuts Christmas. Best one, all the others suck.) I still enjoy giving gifts to people I like and a few decorations but it’s excitement has greatly diminished the past couple of decades. I’m perfectly ok with that. So yeah, writing a holiday blog makes a lot of sense, yeah? Yeah.

Last year was stressful because of all the Gran Bullshit. Jesus. I will take a moment to go off on a tangent here …. I have some lessons learned to share.

Things to do before you die: (not a bucket list, but a to-do list)(don’t wait till your almost dead to think about this shit – do it now while you have all your faculties)

  1. Please make sure your person or people who will be dealing with you shit know where some things are. Things like your driver’s license, social security card, last will and testament, trust papers, last wishes of any kind and money bullshit. They can’t do anything without it. I never found several of those things Gran had hidden. Or the garage door opener.
  2. Clean out drawers, closets, desks and cabinets of papers, random doll heads, broken tools and decades of utility bills organized by year, each year tied together with pantyhose. I couldn’t find her driver’s license or social security card but I did find almost thirty (30!!!) years of monthly utility bills, organized by year, each year tied together with pantyhose. I am not kidding.
  3. Please for the love of all that is good and holy make sure your person or people know where the hell your social security card is and that they have authority to handle your estate. One cannot get a death certificate without a social security number. And one cannot do ANYTHING with your shit without a death certificate, primarily anything dealing with money or property.
  4. If you tell your person or people who all your affairs are indeed in order, please make sure that these affairs are more comprehensive than burial/ cremation wishes, where your plot (should you have one) is and what you want to be buried in, should burial be your choice. Also, when you say it’s all paid for, make sure it’s all paid for. Don’t leave them trying to scramble to find 8-10 thousand bucks for a casket and service, etc. And goddamnit if you want to wear those fucking pearls leave them where your person or people know where the fuck they are.
  5. Assign a person to take care of any embarrassing paraphernalia before family members start digging through your shit.
  6. If you have a big house with a lot of shit in it, I suggest letting them know about some good estate sale people in your area to deal with what’s left after they get the shit they want out of the house.
  7. Please please please please please please please discuss this stuff with those left behind. Trying to clean up all that unfinished business (mess) you left behind is not how you want your loved ones to remember you. That clusterfuck kind of stuff can be avoided.

Yeah, so when Gran died she had all the Important Stuff in a trust and me designated as Successor Trustee. Problem was, I couldn’t find her social security card or drivers license so I couldn’t get a death certificate. I couldn’t get a death certificate so I couldn’t handle any of the money or property business so for MONTHS I was paying bills on her estate and trying care for my aunt (who I inherited the care of when she died – imagine a 64 year old first grader) on my not significant paycheck. Getting all the things taken care of wasn’t as easy as reading the will and having the lawyers sign off on shit. It was a nightmare. The only things I could find in the house besides the aforementioned bills tied with pantyhose were copious copies of the map of the cemetery with her plot marked, what outfit she wanted to be buried in and that she also wanted to wear her pearls. Couldn’t find the outfit or pearls either. And that was it! Oh and a house with 50 years of stuff. Ugh.

Anyway, I’d already learned about some of that when my parents died but this shit – jeeeeeesus christ it was nuts. And so my 2018 started out pretty fucking shitty. BUT somehow I managed to not totally flip my shit. I even came up with a good attitude about some Life Things. 2018 became #TheYearOfDoingStuff and #GoBigorGoHome and #PeeYourPantsFun and #IsThisMyLife. Let’s have a brief recap!!!!!

So one thing I hadn’t done in a long time is visit the Pacific Northwest so I took a wonderfully eventful trip to Washington in February to see my friend Lisa get married. That was good times. A winter storm knocking the hell out of the midwest tried to keep me home but I said FUCK YOU WEATHER and made it there via four airports and a train ride. Such a good time! Really, I had fun. I could never live in Seattle but I loved the visit.

Another travel destination I hadn’t been to in forever was New Mexico. Jesus I love New Mexico. That is where Ric and I got married lifetimes ago and where we managed to somehow not die despite all the drugs, alcohol and dangerous mountain roads. And serial killers (covered in a previous blog post). This time it was much safer and way more legal. I went in the summer with a group of my gals and had THE BEST TIME. We will go on another trip together but maybe not all stay in one Airbnb.

THEN I went to Denver. And this was kind of where the whole 2018 became #TheYearOfDoingStuff actually started. Best Supernatural SisterWife and fellow #SPNFGF original (Supernatural Fangirl Friday) and I had been wanting to go to a Supernatural convention SO BAD but were sadly resigned to never making it till I was tweeting with a fellow #SPNFamily gal on the Twitters. She told me how it could be done. She gave me the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, and of course I shared them with Allison. Who talked to her hubs and they came up with “well if we’re gonna go, let’s go gold” so #GoBigOrGoHome became the next hashtag. We went Gold baybee. Christ Almighty was that a trip. I need to blog that shit. Ok so we did that travel to Denver and I got to hug Jensn Ackles (smelled so goooood and he laughed at my dorky ass) (and I ran into his body-guard with my giant backpack) and get humiliated by Misha Collins in front of a thousand people. Going to another con in March by the way. I had always been wary and jealous of the #SPNFamily I saw online and wanted so bad to be a part of it. But held back. Let’s be honest, there are some crazies out there. And I really don’t spend enough time online, and people are scary and what if they don’t like me and think I’m a poser and talk shit and make fun of me. This is not just insecurity speaking. That happened when I tried to be part of another fandom so I said FUCK YOU to all fandoms. ANYWAY, I now have new friends in the #SPNFamily that are the tits. I met a gal online before SPNDEN and she was my den mother, so to speak. Stacie helped me so much and kept me alive during my first con. She’s going to be at NASHCON in March and we are getting ops together. Man. For reals. Don’t not do shit, find a way to make it happen.

And in between all of that was Gish shit!! So I did GISHWHES the year before which was one of the best things I’ve ever done and when they changed it up to Gish and made an app meeting Oklahoma gishers got real easy. And so through the app Gish threw out some pre-hunt challenges and three new ladies wormed their way into my cold dead heart. We uncomfortably met up with some other new gishing strangers for the first challenge and pretty much talk every day now. It was discovered that we all share a strange and powerful love of Supernatural AND THEY WERE GOING TO THE DENVER CONFERENCE TOO!!! So now I have SPNGFF’s (Supernatural Gish Friends Forever)! Sarah, Lizzy and Skyler are super good friends. Our love is young but we’ve had a little bit of drama and talked about real stuff, like feelings and shit so I am pretty confident we are solid. Then in August we did Gish. It was so good. I need to do a blog post about that and share some pictures.

AND THEN out of all that I somehow got the balls to open that Etsy shop. I did do a blog post about that.

OH YEAH! My house almost exploded too!!!! Holy shit that was scary. A gas line broke and flames were shooting up inside the wall of the living room. Had I been home ten minutes late KABOOM. And the animals were all inside too. Thank god I got home when I did. That would have killed me.

To top off the year I spent Christmas in Oregon with my brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew. He is doing so so good and I am so so proud of him. Even though we didn’t make it to the beach it was the best trip out there in forever. My last trip there was when Kaity died. There is a blog post about the clusterfuck that was her memorial. Good times.

This has been the best year I have had in way too fucking long. Man, in 2010 when that sham of a marriage exploded, it has seemed like one goddamn thing after another. It felt like a plane crashed in my front yard and there were dead bodies everywhere. Figuratively and literally. I had to put down most of my beloved animals one at a time. My dad died. My step mom died. My sister died. My brother almost died. And that’s just some of the bullshit. And we capped off 2017 with The Gran Debacle. So yeah, 2018 was the best year I’ve had in very close to a decade. I have gained more weight than I care to admit but I’ve also gained some new really awesome friends, and the old friends are even close. God that is SAPPY.

So, here it is New Years Eve and I’m doing the whole auld lang syne or whatthefuckever. I’m in my pajamas on the couch, with the black-eyed peas in the kitchen and surrounded by the animals. I am grateful to so many people who played parts in all my adventures this year, have seen me show my ass and still love me, kept me going and are my cheerleaders forever. Allison, Sara and Sarah, Liz, Skyler, Stacie, Amy, Tiffany, AnnaLisa and Jeana to name a few. Insert sappy, gloppy, gooey feelings shit here. It is authentic. I’m just not good at sharing it. Love y’all and I’m super glad you’ll be with me for #2019TheYearOfGreatThings, more #PeeYourPantsFun with required #TweetThatShit moments, #Gish experiments, travel and just plain awesome shit that makes us say #ThisIsMyLife. God I feel like that was so gross and sappy. But true.

Oh boy, I did something involving Fear.

Ok so jumping right on in here, I opened an Etsty shop. Big fucking deal, right? WRONG. Very Big Fucking Deal. To me anyway. And then I made an Instagram account for it. Whaaaat?!?! With pictures of me wearing my jewelry. Awkward pictures of me wearing my jewelry.

K, little background ….

So I graduated from college with a BA in Graphic Art. Not computer graphics, but 2D art, like painting and drawing and shit. But I am not good at that. I’m ok with water-color I guess and I like oil painting but am really bad at just plain drawing. If I spent more time working on it I bet ya I’d improve. And I do love dicking around with sketching and stuff. I love color – it’s what I love about painting. I love mixing and using color and I usually end up with something different that what I originally planned. That’s not what this is about though. When I had to take a 3D class and ceramics I went THIS IS WHAT I LOVE. I have always loved doing things like that, putting together weird creations with sticks and leaves, making crowns and shoes and belts and bags with the giant leaves off the ancient mulberry tree in the front yard. I would use paper and markers to make dresses and flip-flops and crowns (what kid doesn’t need a freaking crown and flip-flops?). I would play dress up with my grandmothers fancy gowns and use her jewelry to make (yup) crowns and belts and bras (I don’t know – it was before I got boobs so I was fascinated I guess). I pissed off my mom because I kept taking my music boxes apart to see how they worked. My record player too. Getting older I started doing those friendship pin things, with the weird plastic beads that have the three ball things and fit together and safety pins. Moved up to embroidery floss and knots for friendship bracelets and graduated to seed beads, big beads, glass beads, all beads for necklaces and earrings. In highschool if figured out I liked messing with fabrics, making clothes and bags and shit. I discovered ceramics too.

But college made it all come together for me. I learned basics and techniques. I learned what I really like and what I don’t. I learned what I’m good at and what I fucking suck at so bad. The top three, silversmithing, fiber arts and ceramics. I love those. And since then I’ve wanted to make and sell shit for a living. But fear, insecurity, self-doubt and then more self doubt, alcoholism, relationships, excuses, bills, fear, and ad infinitum kept me from doing anything.

So now, 18 years later, I am finally taking action. My skills are rusty and so is a lot of my equipment. I’ve had to replace some thing and get out a couple of old books. I’ve reconfigured the art room, added shelves and shit. Got my flex shaft set up, made a spreadsheet, and pulled together supplies and stuff I’ve made, started and never finished and ideas I never started. And then just opened the shop. I have a few things up and more to get pictures of to post. I’ve sold two things already!

I have to keep reminding me that it does not need to be perfect the first time. I need to keep telling me that it’s a process and takes a bit to get in the groove. I won’t have a trillion customers all at once and it’s totally ok if my inventory and skill grows slower than I want it to. What’s important is that I am taking the action.

So, there you have it.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SundryAdornments

https://www.instagram.com/making_awkward/

This is fucking terrifying. What if I fail? My stuff isn’t that good. People won’t like it. It’ll never sell. I suck. I will fail fail fail and people will laugh at me and the world will melt and burn and we will all die a horrible and painful bloody death.

That is what my head tells me.

But man, gonna do it anyway. If the planet explodes, I’m really sorry.

Drugs, Adventure and Murder

So back in the mid to late ’90s my husband (at the time, now ex, it’s all good) and I went to New Mexico A LOT. We got married on Sandia Crest, our honeymoon (summer of ’98) was two weeks in a small red, long bed, pick-up with an extra tall camper shell on the back, racing up and down mountain roads, thoroughly messed up, looking for the most out-of-the-way camping spots.
A couple of our fave places were Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte State Park. We camped in the park and along Elephant Butte lake many times over the years (95ish to 99). This happened to be the funtime and place for none other than David Parker Ray and his travelling Toy Box. He was a guy that liked to take his lady victims, hold them a few days, drug them, sexually torture in a obgyn chair he had fitted up especially for his pleasure. He had an rv he kitted out with all kinds of sadistic shit and he’d take them in there and ….. Some of the ladies, after being drugged with psychotropic drugs he let go. Rumor is that the other bodies he dumped in the lake, buried in his yard or left in the barren landscape somewhere. Oh, and he was a Satanist. His designation, not mine.
So it was our jam to get as wasted as humanly possible and still live while spending a few days in remote places no one knew we were in, and do the whole ‘primitive camping’ thing. Once, after one of these escapades, we were so bad off, I’m sure we needed a hospital, but instead I packed us all up (took me a good four hours I was so messed up), somehow got him, all the gear and the dog in the truck and just started driving. I had no idea where I was or where I had been or where I was going. Don’t know how long the drive was really, but it was at least a few hours, I do know that. After winding through unknown uninhabited areas, I finally came to a town, Truth or Consequences. Turns out we’d been camping either in or right near Elephant Butte State Park. Welp, we cleaned up and had a night or two on the shore of the lake, then moved on. We revisited several more times, our last trip the summer of ’99, but by then the bad guy was gone. He was caught in March of ’99 – so he was active each and every time we were there totally gorked out of our minds. I heard this on Casefile (a terrific true crime podcast with one hell of a narrator)  on one fairly recent show, that was in three parts. I was WHAT THE FUCK TAKES THREE PARTS. It is so unbelievable creepy to know I was there, and primed for easy pickins’.
I was able to give the ex the BIGGEST ‘I told you so’ ever. There really were dead bodies in the lake!
Thankfully he and his cohorts were caught and arrested. There are women’s bodies still unaccounted for, and authorities believe there are open missing women cases that could be attributed to him. Crazy shit has been going on like this since humanity began, I know. I am still surprised by the cruelty and depravity of some humans. It’s one of the things that hurts and sickens me about people. Not all people. There are more good people than bad, I tell myself and hope that I am right.
And that, my friends, is the story of the day. I have more to tell, like the time he got drunk and tried to call the cows in the area to the camp site, and they came. An entire herd of cows with at least one in heat. Good times.

Cuss words! Don’t like? Don’t read.

I love using cuss words. I love to cuss. I swear emphatically, frequently and enthusiastically.

There seems to be two philosophies when it comes to cussing. Some believe that the cussers have a limited vocabulary, and thus, a low IQ, since other words are not chosen for whatever reason the cussing is happening. Others have stated that it’s the smart people that use cuss words. I’ve read an article or two about that and no, I cannot fucking remember why exactly, something to do with…..

Oh fuck me I’ll find one and stick the link in here, hang on…..

I did one better. If it will work, that is. Here’s the link to just the Google search ‘smart people cuss’…

https://www.google.com/search?q=smart+people+cuss&oq=smart+people+cuss&aqs=chrome..69i57.6701j0j7&client=ms-android-hms-tmobile-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Also, I like ellipses and use them often.

Of the articles pulled up by that Google search I think this one is my fave:

https://www.sciencealert.com/swearing-is-a-sign-of-more-intelligence-not-less-say-scientists

My friends, we are brilliant. Especially Jeana, Lizzy and Sarah. The Sarah with the h. We are prolific cussers. We love the word fuck. Our mentors swear with abandon and we look up to them with adoration. Kim Rhodes is especially my favorite. She’s shared so many things about her life, her feelings and shit that I can relate to, experiences I’ve had too. I’ve met her once and was star struck. She is a woman I truly admire. I wave my hands about on Twitter sometimes “notice me senpai! notice me!” and sometimes she does. When she likes one of my tweets I have a mini freak out and my brain goes “Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” It’s nice to imagine that she’d recognize me if I got the chance to meet her again but the woman is fucking famous and I am just one of a bazillion people vying for her attention. Christ I would be a piss poor famous person. Anyway, Kim, I love you and thank you.

There are other women I greatly admire from the same fandom but I shall mention them all in another post. In fact they may each get thier very own post each!!!

But I will close here. I think I finally cleaned up my drafts folder, deleted some stupid shit and totally messed up the format deally thing on here and I don’t know what’s going on and there are a lot of misspelled words. Oh fucking well.

k byeeeeee

To go outside ….

Why am I still at work?
What fresh hell hath consigned me thusly to chair and desk as the sun shines warmly and the ladybugs fly? Why must I be trapped under florescent lights and in processed air rather than the sky and cool wind to whoosh in my ears? What wrongs have I committed to be so tortured as this? I could be free! I could out amongst nature with trees and dirt and clouds! I could be rejuvenated by the very air, open and clear! I could be reacquainting myself with the very carbon from which we come, digging in the dirt, preparing the garden one final time for the long sleep of winter. This day, this sunny sunny day, could be the last …. the last warmth I could feel from the sun before the season of cold takes over, bringing the world to its knees in a frozen anguish. Why am I here? What must I do to be free before this one last chance at goodness and light is lost, gone forevermore?!?!?

Hey hi hello

Warning: poorly constructed sentences here

So I’ve been wanting to do another post but haven’t had much in the way of subject matter come to mind so …. nothing happened. But now I think I have a few things to say. Aren’t you pleased about that?

I love to read. All kinds of shit. My mom started me reading really young. She encouraged me to try new things. She got me started on science fiction when I was still in grade school and moved on to James Thurber in junior high. Mot of my family was pretty encouraging too but  when Grandad found me reading Catcher in the Rye he was aghast. Yes, aghast. He was very upset at the filthy filthy language. Also I may have been a grade or two too young for it. Maybe it’s a brag but out of all the school subjects, reading was what I was consistently good at and when testing began, reading comprehension was where all the high scores were.  In the sixth grade I was at a 12th grade reading level. Yeah, a brag. And I bet there are those of you that will scoff and say “oh that is nothing, when I was two I was reading at 37 year old’s level”. Good for you. I’m taking my brag. There were only a couple other kids in my class with that score so there. Nanny nanny boo boo.

ANYWAY. I love to read. Novels, short stories, essays, sci-fi, horror (sometimes), mystery, suspense, an occasional biography, some poetry. But fiction was and is my jam. And as long as the author knows how to write well, I believe I could read just about anything. And then I found fanfic. Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. I discovered all kinds of shit. Like, good shit and some really really really bad shit. Very really bad. Using a lot of really big and/or obscure words in long sentences doesn’t make you a good writer. Neither does making each work a spiritual and moral reflection of blah blah blah. I mean that shit is tempting. I have fallen prey to that myself. In this very blog too, I am sure. It’s fun to write that shit!!! But I think for readability other things should be considered. I could maybe take a minute and consider them myself, if I want readers for this thing……so anyway, here are some things I’ve run across that would be simple changes and would improve readability and, well, everything else about the story.

Ok, one, please reconsider the use of ‘orb’ for anything spherical in shape, especially eyes. Jesus. “The candlelight was reflected in his green orbs”. Ick. No. Eyes is sufficient if you really really need to write that sentence. Two, who fucking smirks all the fucking time? I mean really? Every single time that character does something with a facial expression it’s a smirk? Every time? Really? Stop making your characters smirk! Like, once a story is fine if they are being super snarky or something, maybe. Also, carding fingers through locks of hair, locks of hair fell in his orbs, the sun made those golden locks shine. Good Christ. Just, no. It’s ok to make a simple sentence about how pretty her blond hair was, or that is was soft or some shit. No need to be super flowery all the damn time. Save that stuff and dole it out piecemeal. One of my fave fanfics has a paragraph that makes me cry every time I read it. It’s kind of long and it’s just describing a coat being pulled from a dryer and zipped up. She writes how the kid getting zipped felt watching his brother do the zipping, how the metal was hot, what his facial expression was. She might use a couple three dollar words in there but there are only one or two. She is able to structure the sentences and use simple words to describe this mundane scene that makes my heart almost ache. And there is more than just the coat zipping, there are the feelings being described too. Jesus. She is a very good writer in my opinion, whatever that is worth. If I ever decided to try writing fiction I would pay attention to how she writes. Her dialogue is easy to follow and flows naturally. The ‘voice’ of each character is true and while the subject matter is fairly out there (fiction!!!) the people are very believable. I think it’s almost time to re-read that one.

So, there is my thing about writing. Time to apply some of that thoughtful consideration to my words as well. One of my fave writers is James Thurber. That man could pack so much shit in just a short essay. He said once, that he felt that continuous editing was what made his work successful (not a direct quote, don’t get all MLA on me here). He was constantly re-reading and re-writing, paring it down and taking out the extra padding, if you will. I guess his style was somewhat spare, like Hemingway. I think he had a similar philosophy when it came to his writing. Just take out all the unnecessary words and what’s left will still tell the story. But, I also like a wordy style of writing too and the author that can find a balance between the two is very enjoyable to me. (think Stephen King – has written some really beautiful stuff about not beautiful things and used lots of words and stuff)(and I seriously doubt he ever used orbs or locks). So I know I sound like a snob but I also do like a nice big word every once in a while. And sometimes a little fancy word combination is fun. A little bit of that extra introspective flowery shit can be a good addition sometimes! But let’s not get carried away here and cram each paragraph with that kind of stuff. I’m a reader, not a writer and I was just talking about what kind of stuff I like to read so I do hope no one takes this personally. I enjoy writing, that’s why I’ve got this damn blog, but it’s for personal enjoyment more than anything at this point. And in one previous post I said something about “the brain thinks, the fingers type” or something like that.  Also with pen and paper. Gotta have the right pen, writing surface and paper though. You get a good combo of that going on and it’s a damn enjoyable experience. Throw in some of those big words and deep thought and your journal has reached new heights of angsty greatness. So yeah, here we are!

Ok. I said I was done then kept going. Sorry about that. Now I am done.

And now I want to talk about…….lunch.

Self Analysis Nets Nothing

So this morning during my ‘quiet time’ I was doing some writing and had an “ooohhhhhhh’ moment. I’ve had those before and it’s this morning it wasn’t about anything new but I think I’m seeing it from a little different perspective, which makes me feel just a little different about it. There is no guarantee that it will actually change anything though. It was a huge disappointment to me when I finally realized and accepted that just because I know a ‘thing’ about me, this monumentally defective living mechanism that just does not work anymore, and that I know all it’s causes and conditions, does NOT mean that I’m all better and will not ever do that again. This self knowledge can make those things I do or don’t do that aren’t and haven’t been working for me more uncomfortable though. But I’m good at stuffing and avoidance. AND I HAVE KNOWN THAT FOR A LONG TIME WHY DOES IT STILL SURPRISE ME.

I mean I know that self knowledge alone will not change what isn’t working, causing emotional pain, ruining my credit score, relationships and waistline. I must take action! Nothing changes if nothing changes. The first time I heard that I had an “oooohhhhhhh” moment. Then I probably proceeded to put my blinders back on till I was really good and fucking miserable.  And that is usually the point at which I decide to take action. Maybe. Man, am I even making sense this morning? Who knows. In my last post I said something about ‘brain thinks, fingers type’ and that might be happening here. Not really stream of consciousness but close enough.

ANYWAY

I know a lot of neat things about myself. I’ve learned a lot of not neat things about myself too. I feel that I am fairly aware of my motives, what drives me or stalls me. I’ve learned to like me too. And I have taken actions and have overcome some pretty big ‘character defects’. My friends and family are every so grateful too.

But for the love of all that is good and chocolaty I still cannot

  • remember what gets harshed
  • keep clutter off the oven and kitchen counter
  • leave the house with all my belongings
  • successfully manage time
  • make a decision
  • not loose my knitting needle, crochet hook, sewing needle, phone, remote to anything, keys, glasses, scissors, nail file, important papers, various tools, time, art supplies, favorite sweaters, and once a rake
  • remember how to spell guarantee (where the fuck am I supposed to put that ‘u’ again?) (thank you spell check)
  • complete most projects that I start – or at least get them done in a timely manner
  •  get all the items on the grocery list
  • remember the password to my email
  • return packages and phone calls on time
  • keep the garage neat
  • keep all the clothes in their assigned drawers…. neatly

and plenty of other things.

HOWEVER

  • towels and sheets must be folded a certain way

BUT

I sincerely believe in that whole “nothing changes if nothing changes” thing. And that I have to participate in a lot of this whole personal growth recovery becoming the best person I can be kind of shit. And thankfully, for the most part, I do! I have people and systems in place to help me keep my mental and emotional shit together. I have things to do when I get all poopie (poopy? poopey?) pants and just want to lay on the couch so I don’t stay there. But for fucks sake I have tried and tried and tried to fix those things up there. I have read and implemented tips from magazines, books, world famous  organizational wizards, folders, bins, bags, boxes, lists, timers, alarms, schedules, colorful ribbons, reminders on my phone and computer, repetitively saying ‘don’t forget….’, dietary supplements,  making up songs, begging the good lord or what the hell ever started this universe to please fucking help me do that shit right ….. and I just can’t. I cannot change those things about me. I cannot fix them. Do you know how many times I’ve left without my keys and locked myself out of the house THIS WEEK? Do you have any idea how many times I leave and have to turn right around and go back because I forgot something AGAIN? Are you aware of the number of times I have chanted ‘g-u-a-r-a-n-t-e-e’ or ‘don’t forget your keys’ or ‘you put the scissors down on the green thing’ or ‘your knitting needle has been stuck in your pony tail’ ‘the crochet hood is in your cleavage’ ‘the screwdriver is on the kitchen table’ ‘your phone is in your hand’? What about the number of times I’ve asked Allison “now what are they harshing?” The list could and does go on.

I wish I could blame this on the copious amounts of pot I smoked in my youth but it just isn’t so. I know it didn’t help any but it is not the cause. I have been this way my entire life. For as long as I can remember I just cannot keep track of things, keep certain areas of my surroundings neat, follow simple directions, or go an extended period of time leaving the house regularly with everything I need. Repetition hasn’t helped those mysteriously spelled words (and why the hell is it so mysterious to me?!?), self discipline (or mom’s for that matter) kept my mind on one task to completion……and more. Much much more. Some day’s this drives me insane and I can’t stand it about me. And other day’s I have some acceptance that this is how I am.

One thing is sure though. Those goddamned towels and sheet will be fucking folded right.

May not be put away, but they will be folded right.