friends – Concentration Lost

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?

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)

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.
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.
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.
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.
Assign a person to take care of any embarrassing paraphernalia before family members start digging through your shit.
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.
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 man

via Daily Prompt: Partner

Well I am trying something new. Not only am I new to this whole blog thing but the Daily Prompt is like less than a minute old in my life. Saw the prompt and went ‘hmmmmmmmm’ the clicked and here we are!

So the Partner prompt didn’t make me immediately think about a spouse or significant other. I don’t have either. Don’t have a business partner. Nor a partner in crime. Weellllll, actually……. I have several partners in crime and it feels good. They are my teammates on our Gishwhes team. They are my friends and my friends friends. And we just had a fucking Gish experience together before the hunt has even started. There’s so much and I’m still trying to find my footing again. I got pretty stirred around inside and I don’t think I’m good with a lot of internal emotional stirring. What I want to do is have my cry fest by myself, eat a fucking cheeseburger and then either zone out in front of a tv show, do some balls to the wall gardening or just read. Escape. I want to escape. I don’t want to feel this but alas, I am.

What happened may not seem like that big a deal to some people. My weirdness may not make sense but tough tits about that, can’t change any of it now. So I started a Gishwhes team and some friends joined me, and they had a friend or two join. Some of us know each other pretty well, others not well or at all and some of us know none of us. But we all joined up because someone we love is doing it, it’s for a good cause and going to be a veritable shit ton of fun. And the prize pretty kick-ass. So, we had four slots left to fill by the time registration closed and as the guidelines state, we were paired with other people. I was nervous and excited to meet them. I couldn’t not wonder about where they would be, what they would be like and I have to be honest, I day-dreamed some about this being such a damn fine experience that we all became such wonderful friends the friendship continued long after the hunt was over. Yeah yeah, silly and optimistic and incredibly unrealistic. And so far from what really happened. And this is where that whole prompt thing comes in. Goddamn I still want to cry even as I sit here and type it. WTF. Not normal for me guys, to be this……whatever this is.

Ok, trying to keep this from being a rambling nonsense post that’s terrible. Here is a little more about The Happening. So, new people are here. As soon as I have the email addresses I send an irritatingly happy email to the entire crew so everyone has everyone’s info. They were sent invites to the chat platform we chose to use instead of FB or texting. The very first response we get is negative, insulting and dismissive. I hoped it was an anomaly but it was foreshadowing. Because after that the communication just went to shit. They were not happy. They did not read the guidelines well and were not expecting to have happen what really happened and it was crystal clear from the conversations with their (appointed or not, I don’t know if they wanted him to be or he took it upon himself) spokesperson. The negative and condescending tone continued in the group chat feed and into direct message conversations with individuals. It was nuts. We all tried very hard to be welcoming, find out what they were unhappy about and what it was we could do to help make this easier for them. Radio silence from three of them, infuriating arguing and frankly, what felt like gas-lighting, from the spokesperson. Jesus H. Christ. So we set some boundaries. It was pretty much a ‘hey we get it and we are sorry but stop with the attitude dude’ but said a lot better than that. We used more words and professional and adult language. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. Maybe I should have just said that and worked on moving forward. I was having trouble not taking things personally and didn’t like how he was treating my teammates and friends. And then he replied. Oh holy fucking hell. And as we are trying to put a shut-down on that shit, talking with another of their team members seemed to net positive results. Till he threatened legal action against unsubstantiated cyber bullying claims. Weeeelllll I fucking lost it. Lost my shit. Not at him thank god, just more of generalized ‘holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit’ kind of thing. I was stunned. Absolutely stunned. And frightened. Terrified. I know we did nothing wrong but that’s not stopped other people from ruining someones life, has it? It happens all the time. And despite knowing that he just has no legitimate claim to make against us at all, I was still turned inside out. My hands were shaking, my throat had that pre-cry tightness and the pounding heartbeat was joining in. All the fun physiological effects of high emotional distress Weeeeeeee!!!!

That was yesterday. This morning I woke up with an emotional hangover. The pre-cry throat is still hanging around too.

So this should be the point where I bring in that word prompt that started this whole post in the first place. (Full disclosure, I had been hemming and hawing about writing about it anyway and was going to at least post something here but was still unsure what that was going to look like….)(the prompt happened and it looks like this) So I’m here thinking “doo doo doo, just look at some random stuff before deciding what to write, hmm hmm, la la la, distraction distraction….” then bammo, Prompt of the Day: Partner.

And I thought about Team FrumpBusters. And the friends that already had and the friends I’m making because of Team FrumpBusters and this whole Gishwhes thing we all said yes to. And I clicked the damn link thing to post about it and here we are my dudes. We took the long way but we made it. My partners. Team FrumpBusters. These are the most fucking awesome motherfuckers I know. They supported me, calmed my ass down, listened to me, brought me back to reality, shushed me, loved me, defended me, cheered me up, made me laugh, let me be a cry baby, distracted me and if they had been with me in person I would have gotten hugs and pats and knowing my people some chocolate or something like that. Damn. That shit makes me want to cry too. I don’t know why sometimes it feels so surprising to have friends like this. But I have tremendously awesome friends like this. I have people that care enough about me to do this stuff. For me. To have someone stand next to you while weird shit is going on, good and bad, and help carry it, and give you what you need so you can keep carrying the part you’re supposed to carry, not letting you drop it but no shit talking or scolding if you maybe let a corner fall or something. Helping you get back to center. And keep you from being alone.

I don’t know if I was supposed to write about my definition of a partner, or describe my perfect partner, or tell stories about partners or whatever, but this is what came out y’all. Maybe I should have spent more of this post on them. There will be more of that as we continue through Gishwhes but for now check out the post above this (below? before?) one. I don’t have just one partner, I’ve got a whole crew of them. And they just got heart gushed by me. Gross.