Tag: random

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.

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.

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.

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/