gishwhes – Concentration Lost

Avoidance: The Name of My Game

Argh. So many things….I’ve been wanting to update here for a while, tell a couple of things or stories or something but…..I have not. I am adept at not doing a lot of things I want, need or should do and I can rationalize and justify why with the best of them. Also pretty good at just not doing and not excusing or explaining why. My mom always said no one could make me do anything I didn’t (or did, it turns out) want to do. Pretty sure this has been a trait of mine for most of my life. As an infant, apparently if I didn’t like what Mom was feeding me I’d refused to swallow it, no matter how bad it tasted. She thought it was frustrating and kind of stupid. I can’t argue with her on that. Who the hell really wants to sit with nasty tasting food in their mouth for any amount of time? Why the hell would someone do that? But, I guess the thought of swallowing that nastiness seemed worse and spitting it out wouldn’t do any good either; the grossness would just be put right back. So I can see how, if in the helplessness of a baby, there might be some amount of control by doing neither of what was wanted. Does that even make sense? Hell yeah it does! To me!

So I’m avoiding….. I go this new phone. I switched from iPhone to Android not too long ago and the started phone I got was just a cheapie. I didn’t want to get a nice expensive phone just to get a month in a wail about the huge mistake I made then not be able to go back to iPhone because of poor choices. So I did alright with that new Android. Liked a lot of things about it actually but it was cheap so….. Yesterday I bit the bullet and used the money I got from selling the old iPhone and upgraded to a better phone. Cool thing about droids is you can still get a pretty cool phone that works well without paying a shit ton of money. So this new phone has that whole ‘Ok Google’ thing on it and I was trying it out and stuff and tested the play music thing and it did which is cool but what’s even cooler than that is the song it played. Highway to Hell by ACDC. Hahahahahah!!! Yeah yeah, you might not think it’s funny but if you knew me better you would. *sigh* So if I wrote here enough maybe you would know me better and understand why that’s so funny to me. See? My proclivity to procrastinate not only hurts me, but it hurts you too. And for that I am sorry.

(the line breaks indicate time breaks that are longer than a month)

So it seems that I can only get one paragraph done at a time. That is really really poor output. Considering how wordy I can be how much my brain thiiiiiinks all the damn time you’d think I’d be able to crank out more than one measly paragraph at once and maybe more frequently than on a quarterly basis. Why don’t we look at it from a different perspective? My procrastination skills and avoidance behaviors are on point. And man, blogging takes time people, lots of time. And good blogging takes even more time. And it’s not like I got a lot of that hanging around just waiting to get used up. Kind of like my money situation. Blogging may not take much of my money but it takes my time and living takes a lot of money, and I guess I’m living a lot because I’m low on time and dollars. Also, I do not excel in time management. So perhaps this low rate of output is more multifaceted that I originally thought.

Also I feel like maybe I should post more than just one paragraph. I know that people are just sitting around waiting to read this shit going ‘just post something lady, COME ON’ and then when I do they aren’t thinking ‘gyp!!! We waited for how long? For one lousy paragraph?!?!’. Nah man, I know what’s on the other side of this blog and I’m totally ok with that. I still feel like if I’m going get on here and tippity tap this ole keyboard I should at least make the post more substantial than a granola bar. Now don’t get me wrong. I love a good granola bar and there are times they can really hit the spot, but I wouldn’t class them up there with a big ole bowl of macaroni and cheese and that’s what I’d really like to provide any readership that may somehow come across this little bloggo. Just a nice filling bowl of macaroni and cheese. Warm, satisfying, enjoyable, and a nice mix of too many carbs and some protein. So………yeah, I got nuthin’ today that compares to macaroni and cheese. Not even the kind with the powdered cheese. Which sometimes, like a granola bar, can hit the spot. But it’s not like a giant serving of mashed potatoes. God I love mashed potatoes.

Also, sometimes I seriously question my original urge to start this blog. I wonder what the real motivation was. What do I really want from doing this? What’s the real goal here? Write thought provoking yet humorous posts about my only slightly interesting life? Is this a platform to pontificate on the issues of the day, whatever that may be? I know in my very first post I listed a few things I wanted to do with this and I think that yeah, I wanted to pontificate some (who doesn’t? even in private) in a thought provoking and humorous way about issues and my life and what I thought was interesting. I also wanted to talk about the boys in the office and all the awesome conversations they have. There is a running joke now about it….I made a comment once that I was going to chronicle their discussions of various snack foods; socks; when to shower (am or pm); how to dry hair; shoes, sports; dinner; trucks; golf; golf shirts; how fast one can eat four big mac’s, 12 oreos, 12 tacos and many many other foods; candy; chips (what exactly makes a chip a chip); soda; dogs; guns; more food…..food discussions are the most frequent. And fucking hilarious.

There was gishwhes too. I wanted to really go on and on and on about gishwhes. I did a little. I also bemoaned some drama and some shit. But I am pretty sure that somewhere I did say that this endeavor could end up just a lot of nothing. And lo! It’s a lot of nothing!! Which isn’t a bad thing. I’m entertained. While it would be really fucking awesome to be like that Jillee* person and have a semi famous blog and maybe earn some cash and have a lot of people think I’m really cool I’d have to ……. be different. I mean I am pretty cool and I make cool shit. I am a pretty good cook. I have a whole SHIT TON of photography to share; earrings to sell; doodads to look at; knits and crochets to wear; dogs to love on; cats to make fun of; really fun friends to talk about; a tv show to fangirl about; music to muse about (heh – alliteration is fun) (jesus I know that was weak alliteration and I can do better) ; issues to pontificate; funny things say……but man, the time. The organizational skills I’d need. I’m so busy doing all those other things actually getting them into a blog to make me super cool, famous and rich is not usually a top priority. Besides, I can’t stay up all goddamned night anymore. Christ, I do that once and I’m toast at work for the next couple of days. So where do I go from here? Hm.

Jesus, and I just lost my train of thought. See? That’s another thing. Train of thought. I go an misplace it all the fucking time. Thus the name of the blog…..concentration lost….heh, it all makes sense now doesn’t it? Yep. Well maybe not much but some things have been explained. Maybe. Ugh.

ANYWAY, maybe I’ll close this post with some random pictures I’ve taken.

^ Taken from the plane flying into Portland

^ A set up of paper beads about to become earrings

^ A dill plant flowered out taken at night, upside down with the flash on

^ The little house thing in my back yard last summer

^ My art table with some of my jewelry making shit out.

^ My sweet Poopsie playing in the hose

^ Some shrooms that were growing in a crook of my pecan tree

^ Lulubelle enjoying the space heater

^ One of the thousands of pictures of the zinnias in my back yard – looooove zinnias

^ Paco – he’s a little disgruntled about the photo op and lack of snack

^ Paco on guard while Poopsie loves on Little Momma

^ Oscar wearing crocheted doughnuts

^ A morning sky from my office window

^ Poopsie putting her rear in the sprinkler

^ Some long ago snow in my backyard at night

^ Christmas lights somewhere in Tulsa

^ Sky, clouds and a rainbow from my back yard

^ Paco chillin’ in the backyard

^ Me and my pal Al on our first ever #SPNFGF (Supernatural Fangirl Friday)

^ An Oregon road

^ Ice Cream the cat and Creepy Baby the doll

^ The Chinese Pastiche that’s famous in my neighborhood in the falltime

^ Some beautiful place in rural Oklahoma – went on a tiny vacation there with a friend

^ An abandoned house I saw going out to the Great Salt Plains one summer

^ Neskowin beach

^ Lulubelle waiting for me to put the phone down

Ok so I took all those pictures myself and if you like them yay and if you don’t oh well and if you think about using them please don’t but tell me you want to and maybe we can work something out but most of all don’t be a dick and say you took those pics or anything and if you don’t like ’em keep that opinion to your self. I’m not egotistical enough to think that these are like the Best Fucking Pictures of Ever and I know they aren’t Magazine Quality or have that Pro Status or whatever, but I took them, I like them, I own them and they tell bits about me, so there. Most important, just don’t be a dick, please, that shit ain’t cool.

*Jillee has that blog/website One Good Thing….. I hope it’s ok to put a link to her here….. cause here it is…. https://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/

What have I done

So gishwhes….good Lord. I knew I signed up for insanity. I think that was one of the main draws to be honest. I wanted that Gishwhes Experience. Well I don’t know if it’s The Gishwhes Experience but it’s def A Gishwhes Experience. It’s been every single one of the feelings, I think. At least once.

I was supposed to be doing all these really great posts about all the shit we’re doing and how it’s going with teasers about pics to post when all is said and done but guys, well, I didn’t do that. Getting close to the end here and honestly I’m not sure what’s going on.

:fast forward a few days:

Man. It’s Monday now and I think I could still sleep a week. What a ride that shit was. I waited far too long to do this. I should have done Gishwhes ages ago.

So, I’ve been thinking pretty hard about what I want to write about, or how I want to describe what happened but I’m still kind of processing maybe? Yesterday I was so fucking tired all I wanted to do was sleep. Not as tired this morning but I could have slept a few more hours. But it’s back to regular life today. In a way I’m pretty happy about that but also I feel like I need a vacation. Also, hormones and Ice Cream the Cat are driving me nuts this morning. Jesus if it’s not one thing, it’s always several other things.

So we all know that our team had a pretty rough start. What with it all being our first time ever to do this then those first team members we got, I’m pretty sure none of us were prepared for the actual week of the hunt. But then, what light was granted us! What a miracle was sent to us! What goodness they gave us!!! The icky people were gone and the new team members saved the day! I was seriously considering just saying fuck it all and not doing it. I so close to just giving up. Sometimes I can be overtaken by despondency and man was I taken over. Thank all that’s good and holy that Team FrumpBusters was saved. And right before the hunt started too. Like, Friday. The day before the hunt. And BAMMO I was thrust into high-speed chaos for the next week.

I’ve worked on teams before. Been on conference committees. Once I even chaired a conference. But I think I was woefully unqualified to head up a Gishwhes team. Thankfully the team I had was a motherfukcing kick ass group of people.

So maybe what I should say about the whole thing is how it was amazing. How it pushed me to keep trying even though I wanted to hit the fuck it button. I was made to get out of my comfort zone. I was made to go against my introvert nature and talk to people, trust people. Let results be what they may. And those are all reasons I decided to do Gishwhes. I’ve known about it a few years now but have been scared of trying it. I was sure that I couldn’t do it. But this past year hasn’t been the hardest year I’ve had by far, but it’s been….ugh, I don’t know. Hard but not, sad but not, depressed but not, lonely but not. All totally contradictory. And all very accurate. And I needed something to force me out of it.

In the past when I needed a Jumpstart like this I have been known to go to unhealthy measures to get that relief. In the past decade and a halfish though, I’ve learned better ways to cope with a pretty heavy case of The Blahs. Or downright fucked up times too. (all that is for another blog post). That being said, this year, while not bad has certainly tested me. Last summer my sister died. Right at the end of June. Today is her birthday too (another blog post may be coming). I had been expecting it to be honest, but that doesn’t prepare you for the call. It wasn’t pretty. Actually it was tragic. And it threw me for a pretty big loop. All these feeeeeeeelings and more feeeeeelings and then family and feelings and travelling and feelings and more feelings that I, successfully or not, crammed pretty far inside. Jesus who wants to feel all that and sort it out? There were circumstances that made it more complicated. We were estranged and goddamn but that made even more icky feelings. So I really pulled in on myself and isolated. I dropped a lot of commitments. Didn’t even really want to work in the yard, and that’s my jam y’all. Well, one of my jams. So yeah, I guess I was a little depressed, numbed out, kinda separate from people and things I loved.

I cannot live to good purpose that way. I cannot sustain that kind of ‘offness’ for long without repercussions. I shared a little with a couple of people about it but it was such a tangled mess inside and feeeeeeelings. Plus I didn’t want to be a whiny baby (I know I know don’t talk like that but it’s a thing I do sometimes). And then GISHWHES!!!!!

I decided it’s fucking time to get my big girl panties back out and do something. Nothing changes if nothing changes, yeah? And sometimes I do the whole ‘go big or go home’ routine to varying degrees success. I think this time it went well.

So I signed up to feel all the stuff that people have written about in blogs and blurbs and articles and chat rooms. I did it to make some new connections and refresh some old ones. I did it to fucking feeeeeeeeeeeel shit. And goddamn did I ever feel. Holy shit balls.

If you’ve read the previous posts you may have seen the one about the first set of new team members we got. Jesus Fucking Christ Almighty that was a fucking nightmare mess. And I felt. Then we got the new new team members and they were a dream come true and FrumpBusters was saved. Because I was this . close to quitting. Omg and Slack. Who knew?!?! I know it was crazy for some people and moved so fast with so much stuff but looooooved it. I loved the fucking weird random conversations. I loved how we came together when the Mean Man was Being Mean. I fucking loved how excited people got when we met the new ladies. I loved learning about Trello, and new music, and different ideas and just all that shit that we blabbered and shared about. I loved how I got to spend time with an old friend that lives states away and make new ones and get closer to the ones here.

And then the challenges. Dear God. I fucking peed my pants kids. Laughed so hard I peed my pants and I am not sorry. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

So, Team FrumpBusters, you helped me out of a funk, back into some creativity and positive actions. You gave me so much joy (eeech, corny I know, it’s fucking disgusting but true) and something exciting to look forward to in a way I haven’t in what feels like a very long time. Thank you for doing it with me even though all y’all had a lot of shit going on in your worlds. It means more than I can articulate. And I just don’t think I have adequately described the fucking awesome gift this was for me. I needed gishwhes. I neeeeeeded it. So here’s some squishy hearty gross squishy feelings of goodness and gratitude.

And some pictures.

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.