Thursday Thoughts - Start running the banner down, drop past the color come up through the summer rain

Appreciating the last full week of calendar summer, but not the fact that the sun is gone by a little after 7 now.

Failing the nightly skincare routine test of adulthood

Agreeing with Aja Barber on the AOC dress at the Met Gala. Click through that link on her name and read her latest three instagram posts though, starting three back and moving forward (so start with dress can be a form of protest). What are we doing to each other out here, people? 

Wondering where all the people defending this when it happened have scuttled away to. And why they're not up in arms about the National FOP posting propaganda then deleting it. Where are all the people who bitch constantly about Philly wasting money on things they don't think are worth it like art or removing racist ass statues? Everyone okay with this $2 million expenditure on something that never should have happened? That was well beyond one person, lied about in unison, and posted by the freaking national FOP? The irony in this is that they created this incident of disorder and anarchy and lied about it and now the City of Philadelphia has to pay for it. 

Failing to grasp ferocious anti-vaxx sentiment especially from people who have the smallpox vaccine scar that saved many people from looking like the left. Grabbed this from cousin Caitlin yesterday and it hits so many points I feel like screaming over. I am sick to death of hearing bullshit conspiracy things and flat out misinformation surrounding this vaccine from people who have no qualifications and think they've figured out a grand fucking government or big Pharma secret. Misinformation and conspiracy theories have no place in my orbit. I am simply done.

Liking this perspective. I have absolutely zero tolerance at this time in this life in this world for any hustle culture be a boss crush it shit but I do like to be able to salvage days that get away from me when I need them not to. Like when on a deadline. 

Running errands today - dropping some laundry off, picking up printed material, post office, Target pick up, ALDI...The Christmas Tree Shoppe just for perusal, not need

Living in Animal House, or Animal apartment as depicted below then expounded in two more bullets. The old dogs are back in Philly with MFD as of Tuesday night and the three Bs - Bruce, Ben, and Billy - are holding down the fort at the shore.

Visiting Dog Beach daily now that summer is over. Dogs can go there all year long, but summer is brutal with parking and people. We'll hit it daily until people beaches are open to dogs, then we'll do our walks there and head to Dog Beach to shell intermittently or when I feel like a five minute drive.

Getting used to life with a cat. Billy Hicks is more and more a dog cat daily. He plays fetch with Ben, wants to go outside when the dogs go, joins the chorus of animals demanding food twice a day, pounces around causing mayhem, sleeps in bed, wakes up when the dogs do and goes to sleep when the dogs do. He also likes to read. 

Listening to August and Everything After by the Counting Crows, which turned 28 this week. I was listening to it since it came out and I saw them for the first time in 1997 at the Bob Carpenter Center while at the University of Delaware. I am not a whole album person, an that's true with this one too, I always skip one song, but I will listen to the majority of it, always have and still do almost 30 years down the line. Coming from me, that says a lot.

Watching Nine Perfect Strangers. What a fucking weird show. 

Eating Food other people make. Dad and Carol are at the shore and Carol made Mississippi pot roast this week and it was so freaking good. 

Wishing Shelby of Big Hungry Shelby a happy birthday today - she has a short story coming out next week! 

Reading on the porch, finished the newest Kimberly McCreight at midnight last night (passable, but my least favorite of hers so far) and started Buses are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider this morning since Bruce got up at the ass crack. Thanks to those who joined us for Show Us Your Books on Tuesday. 

What's new with you?

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Omaha by Counting Crows. 

Thursday Thoughts - you walk cool but darling can you walk the line

1. When the morning light hits just right

2. Current notebook. If it speaks to you, you can find it on Society6.

3. National Dog Day is today, August 26, and also every day. Shots of mine from this week.

4. Their cat returned late last night and they were very pleased. This morning Billy shredded some toilet paper and explored the entire house and I am just upstairs in my office ignoring it. There are about 2034803480348 zillion places for that cat to get into and/or break. He can do both the basement stairs (carpeted) and the stairs to go to the top floor (not carpeted ) so that's good. He is really interested in the cords coming down from our bedside lamps, which is not so good.

5. Eating well this week with minimal effort on my part. It's nice to have more people in the house to cook LOL. Salmon, salad, and potatoes on Monday. Dad picked up sushi on the way home Tuesday. Wednesday salad and burgers. Tonight leftovers. 

6. Out here killing it this week sticking to regular work hours, eating meals at the table, reading, getting all personal errands done, ticking my work to do lists. Even though I'm vaccinated I'm back to mask wearing inside everywhere and have been for about a month now and hope you are as well. Stay safe out there friends! 

 

7. That Back to School jawn. 

8. Everyone will surely be learning how to find America on the global map in the Time of Corona. In many ways this feels like an impossible, constantly chafing world right now.

9. Reminder: via

10. Ecards: 

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to or most recently heard when I'm starting this - this week is The Ties That Bind by Bruce Springsteen off The River album. The Born to Run album turned 46 years old yesterday.

Thursday Thoughts - some all-hot half-shot was headin' for the hot spot snappin' his fingers clappin' his hands

1. One of my favorite working from home things is to be able to always have adult lunchables without having to package everything separately. 

2. I was in my office Monday to collaborate with people in person for the first time in 500 days. I could not figure out how to get the fuck out of the train station because only two exits are open in Suburban. Good start.

3. Tuesday I was at a grand opening during which I said no thanks to shaking hands and will say no thanks to shaking hands for eternity. I also almost ran out of gas coming home due to turnpike gas being shut down. I also got caught in rolling lane closures and dead stop traffic. All of these things in this and previous to say Real World Re-Entry is not smooth. 

And to use this photo, which is blurring because my camera is not focusing in when I zoom too quickly, Apple's way of urging me to its newest model (I was dead stopped with lane closures, do not fret), but the sign says REPENT Confess your sins GOD WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON and I saw this coming and going and I know many religions rely on spreading their beliefs to others but I wish more religious people relied on having love in their heart for all people. I'd rather a sign saying BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER than this tone. This pisses me off regardless of intent.

4. I'll be back in my office for a few hours tomorrow too to have something couriered out. Woof, this week. I've watched nothing, read very little of Elin Hilderbrand's latest (Golden Girl), not much else. Since I'll be in there anyway I might try to get an acupuncture appointment in.

5. I did get a new to me car dropped off. Is it wild that companies will just drop a car off at your house for you to own? What a world. We've leased a volvo for me for the past six or so years and decided to get out of that game and buy used. I got a little wagon and I love it. I never wanted a white car, still don't, but this had the interior I wanted and super low mileage and used cars are sort of scarce right now. Carvana. And our marriage survived. Sorry for the not great photo, I am not a big car person but am a big they dropped this right off for me at the curb convenience person. Thanks to MFD for getting this all done. I don't do the car things, I handed that over to him years ago after he drove off in my fully paid off car and came back in a new one.

6. We love a simple meal like grilled steak, fresh cauliflower cut up and steamed in water/butter/Penzey's fox point seasoning, and baby potatoes steamed then baked at a high temp.

7. Don't @ me. Covered Simone Biles and the consumption of other humans and bathing yesterday.

8. The friendly household serial killer of all things stuffed.

9. Reminder: 

10. Ecards: Until the mosquitoes and gnats are dealt with at least.

Happy birthday to Frank today! As always he'll be here tomorrow with his annual birthday blog.

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to or most recently heard when I'm starting this - this week is Bruce's Blinded by the Light

The beat goes on

All day yesterday I thought it was Wednesday. Hello, today, on True Wednesday. Coming at you live this morning, without a true point here and on only four hours of sleep due to a combination of up too late reading/almost 16 year old dog gets up at 5, so the grammar and writing will not be tight and we will be okay with it. 

It feels like we're moving back towards...a livable life? I don't want to say "normal," because I think a lot of us realized we didn't exactly flourish in what was passing as normal and you will drag me back there kicking and screaming. But then we didn't flourish in serious nail biting beginning quarantimes, either. And we struggled in the in between periods of the summer and early fall as the federal government left us hanging out to dry and most of us grappled with individual risk/reward scenarios. Now, with smart people who are able to be vaccinated getting vaccinated in the interest of public health and the economy, it feels like we've learned some shit over the past year about ourselves and the society in which we live and we are poised on the precipice of flourishing. And it is a little hard to muster up the energy to do that given the collective heaviness we've been living under. Right?

Who's with me?

In any case it makes me so fucking happy to see people together after being vaccinated. I have girls weekend with my BFFs of 30 years coming up in less than a month and I am looking forward to it in an indescribable way. 

One of the things I've been doing recently is purging, reorganizing, and redecorating. As walls get painted in Philly for the first time in many years, I'm changing up the gallery wall on the staircase. I was going through photos to put on canvas, and as I extended past March 2020, it feels like looking at a different life. 

I used to get up for the sunrise no matter what, and I'd miss most sunsets and be a tired troll by 3 pm. I truly love and prefer to do the sunrises, but the past year has taught me that what I love even more is getting the appropriate amount of sleep and navigating the day from a well rested place, which I can't do if I force myself to get up for every sunrise just because why? It's what I do? Nah. That's not a good reason at all. I still do it (photo above from this morning, an out of necessity rising), but not as often as I used to, and guess what? I haven't withered away from crushing disappointment in life or myself for missing something I love. What I have been able to do is see a lot more sunsets and find a similar solace and peace in them and still get the amount of rest I need.

The cadence of my life feels different coming out of the first year of life in the time of corona, and I imagine yours feels a little different as well. Outside of the personal and professional changes we've had to make too, there have been a lot of societal and cultural line in the sand moments in a little over a year. Circles we traveled in might feel ill fitting if you know people who denied/called it a plandemic virus when it has killed over 570,000 Americans alone in less than a year...we might also be less likely to sit with people who defended the police involved in George Floyd's murder or with people who supported a Capitol insurrection on January 6. We can't really refer to things that kill people as differences of opinion, you know?

Whenever upheaval or change happens in my life, whether it was prompted by something good or something bad, I spend some time behind the scenes tinkering until the balance is where I want it. While I'm anxious to get back to doing things I love, like girls weekends, I am committed to leaving things that no longer serve me in that other life and holding space for other joys.

From there to here, and on into the unknown

Life in the Time of Corona. The beat goes on. Monday I read this from The Atlantic: Late-State Pandemic is Messing With Your Brain and it hit, as written pieces will do for all of us. This one because it brought up two things I've been thinking about, and maybe you have too. 

The first and most glaring is I've forgotten how to live the life I used to live before this. 

I went into my office a few weeks ago to go to my dentist and it felt like catching glimpses of a past self. The prospect of going back to even a passing semblance of what I used to do feels as it mentions in the article - unimaginable on a literal level, like my brain can't or won't put me in those places, doing those things. Walking down the still largely empty streets of a city I've worked in the middle of for over 12 years with it bustling and buzzing around me, assimilating me into itself every time I stepped out of a building or train station, is creepy and jarring. I  imagine a scenario in which I return to those streets, dodging people that once again fill them, will also feel creepy and jarring. 

Are we each living in our own version of Sliding Doors?

I'm starting to forget and in some instances have completely forgotten what life before this was like, so the prospect of returning to anything that was just as it was feels foreign too. Every night I went over the morning commute - what train did I want to catch? Okay, that means leaving at this time or this time or this - and every day I knew when I had to get my shit together and get out of there to catch my regular train home. If I had to walk to acupuncture at lunch, I had to leave at x time. Same for the dentist or any appointment anywhere in the city I was walking to. 

I have always been a master of time, always been early. Now? I blank even thinking of how long it would take me to get to the train station and move my ass onto a train. I had to run from my office to my acupuncture appointment a few weeks ago because I misjudged the time. When I have to leave the house for one of my few and far between appointments now, it is hard for me to gauge what time I need to leave by - I either cut it way too close or I'm an hour early. 

Yesterday crept into the 60s and I sat in my yard in the sun at lunch which was my constant respite as the weather warmed last April - arguably one of the worst if not the worst months of mental struggle for me in my lifetime - and I felt an uncomfortable sense of looking around for April 2020 me and hoping she wasn't going to dare show her face around here again. I'm normally not so inhospitable toward my previous selves. 

Early on in this, I worried if it would impact my brain and thinking patterns long-term. A year in, that's so LOL...it's not a matter of if it will, but how it will. While I don't struggle as much mentally anymore, I do still feel at times what The Atlantic piece mentions as a physical heaviness about the shoulders and which I refer to as a pandemic sweater, and carrying that doesn't come without a price. And as in the case of the author of The Atlantic piece, I have experienced the pandemic from a place of obscene privilege as well - I can WFH, my immune system is good, we weathered the financial impact of loss of wages and income better than a lot of people could, our losses have been few, our close framily are people who believe in science - yet it's still been hard to carry, so how the fuck are the people who did not experience this from that place going to be okay moving forward. 

How do we go ahead at all when some people still don't believe something close to 530,000 Americans have died from in under a year is a thing? How can there be a collective grief for people and ways of life lost when there are so many people out there who are basically like fuck your loss and fuck your grief and I didn't change anything and you’re a sheep for doing so? Forward seems like walking through honey next to these people.

But forward is happening. Vaccine rollout is happening. 

Exactly what forward looks like personally, professionally, societally...we're all heading a little bit into the unknown. I'm interested as hell to see where we go from here, with us dying to do some things again and not interested at all in going back to others. 

And that's the second thing I've been thinking about. How to prepare to transition into what's next when we don't know what next looks like. The abrupt change in life on March 16, 2020, was part of what was hard - no easing in. No transition. And it looks like asking for an ease into the next is still too much. But we've shown we are extremely adaptable and resilient, and we'll be that way with whatever comes next too. That's the plan, I guess. 

More than words, or no words. Same diff.

This weekend on Instagram Alyssa  posted a tweet something about the world being out of things to say and I replied I have absolutely nothing left except things that make me sound like I've eaten a bunch of acid. Like things I'd not normally discuss, or that make little sense, have no importance/aren't even interesting, just going off on tangents about nothing. I've got nothing. Nothing going on, nothing new. I am looking forward to things, but that's not a cure for the same ol' of today. It's also different to carry on a virtual conversation with someone versus being in person and having conversation flow naturally. 

Do I mind being home most of the time? No. However, I do gain inspiration from being out in the world, so I  lack that now and have for quite some time. Many of us draw inspiration from being out in the world and some people probably didn't realize that until this past year. Even the most self-proclaimed anti-social not people persons among us suffer from such limited social interaction and lack of proximity to actual humans in the same space, both strangers to observe and also humans we love and see often. We are not built for so much solitary time, even those of us who love it and prefer it (meeee). When I do see people, I am reminded that I have to learn how to be with people again. Coming up on a year of a life much different than most of us have always lived, the strain is real right now, even from places of privilege. If you are a person who creates or shares content for a living or because you like to personally via blogging or social media, it is not an easy content creation time. It's not just about the creation of actual content - the inspiration, writing, graphics - it's knowing the people you're serving it to aren't that hungry, or they've already eaten that this week. You don't necessarily feel like reading or writing a lot of things and you can definitely feel the mood that people don't feel like receiving them. 

Combine that with hitting the grisly over 500,000 dead from covid in America milestone, all the political and social unrest that's not left us alone and the knowledge of the work ahead to dismantle systems, the frustration over vaccine availability and rollout, the gray and cold and precipitous weather for most of us in the northeast, the devastation in Texas and other southern states from a climate crisis weather event, and it's certainly straight put your head down and get through the day status right now. A more quiet period. A collective period of don't have much to say - not just me, and not just you. Maybe a period where we let that be and don't try to fill silence because we think we have to or should. A break from the constant posting and scrolling and consuming and feeding and scrambling. 

I read this on the Ladies Pass it On facebook page on Saturday and thought yes. Yes. 

You’re not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now.

Messages are brief and replies late.

Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold.

Group chats are no longer pinging all night long.

It’s not you.

It’s everyone.

We are spent.

We have nothing left to say.

We are tired of saying ‘I miss you’ and ‘I cant wait for this to end’.

So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day.

You’re not imagining it.

This is a state of being like no other we have ever known because we are all going through it together but so very far apart.

Hang in there my friend.

When the mood strikes, send out all those messages and don’t feel you have to apologise for being quiet.

This is hard.

No one is judging.

Donna Ashworth

Hang in there friends. We're almost through February. The vaccine rollout is happening, albeit not as quickly or as easy to understand as we'd like. We'll be spending more time outside again soon, which made it so much easier to socialize last year. You're all invited to bring a blanket and sit with me on the beach. 

The Groundhog Day of it all wall

There's a theme in my life, every February. I feel like breaking out. Going somewhere, doing something different, getting out of my everyday life for a while. A need to escape. A longing to travel, to see and to do almost anything other than what I see and do daily. 

I fully believe in the restorative nature of the winter season - a time to pull in, hibernate, heal, reflect, restore, rest, sort, hygge, embrace, renew, build up energy, read, look inside and really clean out the internal clocks. But about this time, even with two months left of winter, I'm looking to break free, to look outward instead of in, to open the door and stick my head out and look around at the world. 

That's not different this year.  I want to go everywhere and see everything. Even when I don't live in a world that allows for that at the drop of a hat anymore. Whatever sparks this urge in my brain and body didn't get the Cancelled/now virtual due to Covid memo. 

If anything the February restlessness has arrived earlier and the desire feels more desperate, likely because I see and do less. I want to go somewhere I haven't been, do something I haven't done, but also...to do things I have. To reclaim the options we've all always had until we started living in Coronaland. These options still exist, of course, but the ease and comfort of doing them does not exist on my risk/reward spectrum. I want to eat at restaurants, actually AT restaurants and not take out, like every day and not do dishes ever again. To take a spur of the moment drive to visit a friend. To not have to plan doctor appointments near my office looking over my calendar with the precision required to plan tactical missions deep in enemy territory because I don't go to my office anymore. Because I need permission from my company to even go into my office. To be surrounded by movement and life in the city that I can observe at a remove.

There's a caveat of privilege to everything I write all the time, and never more than being a middle aged white lady office worker in Coronaland. I have it so fucking good and I know it. I work at home. I can stay safe at home. I'm not required to go anywhere. I'm not a frontline worker putting my ass on the line and my job does not require me to be in person. We took financial hits but were in a position to weather them. This is not an "I am sick of being stuck at home/life is bad because of Covid" post. I know why we're home and that we're lucky to have homes and I take neither lightly. 

I just wanted to acknowledge the Groundhog Day of it All wall out loud in case you also find yourself in front of this same wall every year around this time of the winter, and this year you find the wall way more extra than it normally is due to the ugly Covid 19 wallpaper this miscreant world applied to it. And you want to beat on it with your fists more than normal due to more worries and roadblocks and fears and so many people hurting physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Everything is extra in Coronaland, including February restlessness. I'm not offering solutions to it. I'm just naming it. 

If you have funds, please consider donating to a charity that works with unhoused people, fill up your local food bank, and support your local shelters. Ask after your neighbors, especially the infirm or seniors who might see or hear from even less people than you do. Check in on people who have lost people in this pandemic, or gotten ill themselves. And as always wear a mask. Sign up for vaccine info as it becomes available in your state. The Groundhog Day of it All wall is enough without the extra Covid layer. 

Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing, but different than the day before

Happy third workday of January. How are we doing? 

I am not a resolution maker anymore, but I have set intentions for the year at the beginning of most years. I don't only do that then, of course. I've done that quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily. This year, my only intention is to stay afloat.

When I think about what that actually means, I can break it down as I see it manifesting in 10 ways in my day to day. If you like anything from this list and want to adapt it into your life, cool, but this post is not me advising people how to live at this time. My only advice is however you can. This is how I'm doing it right now. I am not here to take a positive piss in your cereal and hand it to you and tell you it's milk. I'm not here to read anything from anyone doing that either. 

1. One day at a time mindset. This is easier for me to grasp since I live with someone in recovery and am extremely familiar with the concept of ODAAT, but as a planner it was still a big change. I am in a 24 hour vision cycle right now. Tonight I'll think about what I'm going to do or not do tomorrow. I used to plan my days out at least a week in advance. That doesn't work in my life right now, so I don't do it.  On weekdays, this includes staying on top of work with a task breakdown and lists. On weekends, it includes whatever I feel like doing that day. Living more by feel. A planner with no plans. Life requires adjustments.

2. No guilt. There is no right way to live through a pandemic and massive societal unrest. I can sleep more, eat more, turn off the news more. Whatever I need to do that day to stay okay or get to feeling okay, that's what I'm doing that day. And okay? That is what I'm aiming for. I'm not looking to be good, great, or positive AF. If I end up being any of those things that day, cool. But my goal every day is to feel okay. 

3. As the title indicates, my day to day is not much different. My intention is have a routine, but make it flexible. I suffered through much of 2020 because I thought I couldn't have a routine at all and I really need a fucking routine to feel grounded. So as an example: I can use my time before work that would normally be my commute time to read, sleep in, walk, write, get something done, sit quietly with my dogs...anything besides sit on my phone and waste an hour on it before I even start doing anything else. 

4. Essentials of daily living - adequate sleep, proper hydration, and food. The first two are self explanatory, no? As for the last, it's a little more than just food...when I first started really cooking, I would try to find something cool to make. Then I fell into the I need to cook to live, here are easy things that I like. In 2020 most things I found creative joy in stopped - cooking was one of those things. It's coming back. 

5. Put the phone down. 

6. Work/life boundaries. Something else I did last year to my detriment is let work bleed over into my time. Sometimes that's the nature of the beast when you are on a deadline but it should not be common practice. I'd get up and just start working and if I didn't have anything happening at night (um hello when were things happening at night never) I'd keep working. 

7. Rest does not need to be earned. I don't need to be productive outside of working hours first before I earn the right to rest. This world is exhausting and demoralizing right now and I'm fucking tired. I know you are too. We can rest. We don't need to front. 

8. Get outside. I don't feel as good anywhere as I do outside. 

9. Joy is not a crumb. Two things can be true at once. Two things can exist at once. Joy doesn't need to be tamped down because there is suffering in the world. If that was true, after the massive suffering we've endured and also caused through human time on earth, we'd no longer exist. So joy is not meant to be the crumbs that are left after everything else is dealt with.

10. Grace for myself and grace for others. There will be more bad days than normal this year like there were last year. People will forget things, I will forget things. We will disappoint each other. I'm giving myself and you more space. 

I tested these things out during my holiday oblivion period. I like how I feel mentally and physically. I'll keep on until I need an adjustment. I hope you're finding a way through that works for you.

Today, the Georgia way also works for me. Never forget this presidency and any possible change in the Senate was delivered to us largely through the blood, sweat, tears, ingenuity, and leadership of Black women. Recognize this and make sure Black women are in positions of leadership everywhere and paid what they are worth. 

525,600 Minutes - How do you measure a year?

This is not my typical reflection on the year post. 

There’s no way in hell I could or would do that this year. I'm not feeling reflective.

As we crawl toward the calendar end of 2020, the only things that matter to me are we both remained healthy, we had food on the table, we lost income but kept our jobs and both houses, MFD's sobriety is intact, and we are lucky as fuck compared to who and what others have lost and what others have been through this year. I'm writing this from a place of immense privilege, like I write everything. I know where I sit. Friends and family who had Covid are still with us, those who have lost jobs and income are still hanging on. This has not been the hardest year of my life by far. I've had more personally devastating years. This year the aggregate pain of the world is an enduring pressure squeezing all the air out of the room and you can't be human and not feel that. 

Our collective personal lives have been drowned in the tsunami of a global pandemic, political theater, and social unrest. It's hard to feel anything matters beyond the very big national and global shit swirling around us, the reality of people dying around us, the disbelief of others that that dying is even happening, and individuals and small businesses suffering financially while billionaires get more billionaire-y when we have the economic ability to remove that suffering. It's a lot to process. It takes up a lot of space in my brain and my heart. 

But we beat on, boats against the current in our individual lives. Things have not stopped happening to and for us in the good or bad sense. Since 2011 I've kept this blog as a marker for myself, a journal of my life. In recent weeks I've found I have forgotten major things that happened in my life this year. Like our house in Philly being in the path of a tornado slipped my mind. I am also frequently surprised to find my mother-in-law is no longer alive. I see a photo of MFD and I in a fucking commercial that was on TV all over the place in an hour and a half radius when he was running for office and I feel like I walked in on Bobby Ewing who I thought was dead in the shower on Dallas. Did all of that happen? 

It did. It all happened. 

These are big life events in my life, and they've gotten lost this year. Writing is a big part of processing for me, and since creativity, focus, and writing took a pandemic hit, here we are. This is a list to remind me of what happened in my life in a year that is blurred at the edges and raw in so many places. There are some things on here from before the pandemic (March 16 is my Pandemic Date, what's yours?) that I forgot about completely. This list is also not complete. It's hard for me too look too closely at things after March. So if you're reading this, this is the skim. 

-My mother-in-law died in April after a terrible battle with cancer. The 10 person funeral we had is like a beyond bizarre dream sequence from Twin Peaks. No typical large funeral or lunch. No internment. It still does not feel real. 

-We lost other friends and family members and did not attend their funerals. As an example, we lost Aunt Clara on MFD's side, and she was just the literal best. It hurt not to be able to attend services for her like I know it hurt people to not be able to be there for MFD and his siblings and honor his mom. The loss of people outside of Covid and the inability to gather in the typical ways that become touchstones to that person's physical parting is one of the things that will stick with me the most. It's like people have just disappeared and it feels awful. 

-I did not once this after shit fell apart in March fall back into a bad old habit I have always fallen back into: smoking. Stress smoking, comfort smoking, social smoking...none of it, not once. 

-I lived at the shore from May through...well, I'm still here. 

-I went to the beach pretty much every day. I probably missed 10 days since May

-I have never collected so many amazing treasures from the sea

-Living mostly in an efficiency apartment showed me how much I keep that I do not use or need

-I worked from home from March 16 on

-I ate outside at a restaurant once since March 17 and inside zero times. I’ve never gotten so much takeout in my life

-MFD got on the ticket in a write in and ran for office, and got a lot of support and press. My house was a campaign office from the summer on. My neighbor let her sister use her house to stalk us and film us and put our private everyday living business on the internet and now is unsure why we are not feeling neighborly toward her. There were racist incidents PLURAL on my street with Black and brown campaign folks including a major incident at my polling station on Election Day. People continue to disgust and disappoint me. 

-MFD was shut down work-wise for a time by order of the governor and threw all of his energy into getting food to people in our community and his larger recovery community who were struggling. 

-He also started classes to add Certified Recovery Specialist to his skill set. 

-Our house in Philly was in the path of a tornado in early August. No one was hurt but the roof had to be replaced and most of my beloved tree removed. The skylight, window panes, and fence still need addressing. 

-Philly house, mostly before the pandemic hit: MFD redid the entry floor in Philly with floorpops. Vincent painted the spare room in the basement in BEHR Cherubic in preparation for my mother-in-law moving in which obviously never happened, MFD painted the dining room (gray, I can't find the color right now) and I painted some of its furniture, we replaced the dining room table with one on clearance from Pier 1, main level floors got refinished for a fucking steal from a local neighborhood team, and the kitchen cabinets got painted. Some of this stuff  like the entry and floor refinishing we’ve been talking about doing for 10 years.

-Shore house: In February the small full bathroom in the upstairs of the shore house got a new sink and the big full bathroom got a new vanity/sink and shower pan (the old one was cracked and miraculously held through summer 2018) and we finally bought a new sectional couch for our shore apartment (in February, it would not make it there for quite a number of months due to the pandemic). We took the next steps in the year round plan at the shore: had baseboards installed in the bathrooms and started window replacement, which was supposed to start in the spring but we did not push the button on that because of income loss. Since you go under if you get too far behind on scheduled maintenance and you don’t have contractors available at the ready, we ended up putting the deposit down in the fall but the fucking windows are still not in yet. We also got rid of one of two remaining mattresses from when we bought the shore house (full bed), moved some beds around, and added a king. Also got rid of an old dresser and replaced it with one my Dad & Carol were getting rid of. I also got rid of Comcast cable.

-Mice. I fucking dealt with mice. A lot of mice. I became obsessed with their deaths

-I’m not doing world events but man losing RBG fucking hurt. A personal hero and birthday twin. So many times this year kicked us when we were down. This was one of those times for me.

-In addition to property manager and admin for the shore rental, I became a Covid counselor. I never imagined people would want to get so deep and emotionally bond with me as I was returning their money to them over and over and over. I rebooked one week this summer five times. I am almost unable to start for 2021. I have contracts unwritten all over the place.

-An impromptu trip up and back to North Jersey in January just to see Laura and have lunch, a weekend trip to Boston to visit Kim and Steve and Libby, a long weekend trip to Florida to visit Aunt Carrie and Uncle Jim in their happy place and saw my college roommate for the first time in many years while I was down there. I also spent time at Lori's lake house while tornadoville was happening in Philly. 

-We saw Aunt Mary Pat at the Ferko Clubhouse for a fundraiser. Harriett's Bookshop opened at the beginning of February and we were there for it.

-My dogs got a pink princess bed and I took 230984834 photos of them in it, I started Year of the Dip and let it mostly die on the vine after March 16, I was working 12 hour days and most weekends through most of January and February and it was killing me

-The love of reading, writing, cooking, dulled. Focus dulled. Creativity dulled. Exhaustion. Brain fried. Inability to concentrate. Forgetful. I’ve never spontaneously cried so many times in my life about things not personally related to me

-I started watching TV and movies again

-I talked out loud to the camera a lot purposefully and put it on Instagram. Lunch time check ins. 

-I lost friends because I did not choose whiteness over everything else 

-Due to shore house cancellations/WFH for all/covid protocol agreements, I spent more time with my niece and nephew this year than I ever have and it was really great. Truly one of the brightest spots, and time with them and my brother and Aubrey and parents are the only times I felt remotely normal all year. Thanks to the shore house which allows people to stay separate from us and the great outdoors I also got to see people in person throughout the year: Kim and Steve and Libby, Laura and Chris and MBD and the boys, Melissa and Jim and Zach and Zo, Debbie, Michelle and Amelia, Amanda and Frank and Eva who I saw the most and also made me feel like things were going to be okay. Outdoor gatherings forever. 

-Labor Day old school driveway party if we can consider under 10 a party. For the purposes of this year, we can and will. 

-Excellent text chains with my people

-So many fucking walks. So so so so many. Not many sunrises. Lots of sunsets. More soda than I've drank in years. More Snickers ice cream bars than I've ever eaten in my life. 

There is no putting a shine on this turd of a year and I'm not looking to paper the walls with silver lining. I think a lot about what the enduring effects of this year will be on my mindset. Were there unexpected side effects that turned out to be good or in my favor? Yes. Am I glad 2020 is over? Yes. But things are not going to magically change at the stroke of midnight. 

I'm prepared for that.

2021 is still going to be hard. 

Gratitude is not hard. I didn't accomplish much or set the world on fire and I cannot stress enough how little I care about that. I’m just thankful I held on through this year when my mental state took a huge hit, that I still have a job, that my husband picked up my slack and also helped guide me through when I’m usually the guider. I’m grateful for everyone and everything that kept me afloat. 

Hope is not hard. I am hoping for a better year for all of us. I’m hoping we remain healthy and careful until it’s time for vaccinations for regular people. I’m hoping we drop the fucking conspiracy theories across the board because they are fucking maddening and so tiring in an already exhausting world. I'm hoping our government starts governing for the people and that we hold their feet to the fire to do so. I'm hoping we do the hard work in confronting white supremacy in ourselves and in all spaces we find ourselves in to make this world livable for marginalized people. I'm hoping each of us individually finds it within ourselves to make sure that if things are good for us, we don't stop there but make sure they are also good for our neighbors (unless they stalk you, then fuck those people). I'm hoping we give each other grace as we navigate our way out of this pandemic and grapple with all the changes that have occurred in such a short time and all the inequities that have truly been laid bare for all to see - if we ignore them now it will be at our own peril. I'm hoping we take the good things we painstakingly extracted from this insane year and usher them forward, creating space for them. I'm hoping we leave old ways that were hurting us as people and as a society in the past. 

For 2021 I don’t have a word of the year or an agenda or goals beyond survival, health, rest, work/life boundaries, and hydration...but I do have a commitment to do my part to make the world I want to live in come to fruition. And hope. I have hope.

I’m hoping. I’m hoping. I hope you will too. 

Thursday Thoughts - I think you better turn your ticket in and get your money back at the door

1. No words for the glory of Tuesday's sunset. I credit that and a solid eight hours of sleep with elevating my mood this week. 

2. Today is my nephew's third birthday. He loves Mr. Grinch so much so I had my Mr. Grinch ready for our FaceTime this morning. He makes me laugh all the time. He is so smart and so funny, has endless energy and when he loves something he LOVES it. His joy is contagious. I am 40 years older than him and have been buoyed so many times by his joy in this shit year. He is a gift in this world in any type of year. Happy birthday Stephen III! 

3. I do not have any pretty snow photos from Winter Storm Gail to share. The shore got no snow as is mostly typical and totally fine with me, just high winds and flooding after hours of downpours. My dogs had me up at 2:26 to go for a walk since only Ben would enter the down pour to take a pee on Wednesday night. 

4. When your socks perfectly match your pants. Thanks, Tie Dye man. 

5. You all know I'm not into Christmas in general in a normal year. I do have minimal decor out at the shore though (the Christmas 2020 sign is in Philly) and I love my Christmas mugs so 12+ mugs of Christmas happens on Instagram this year. Minimal Christmas decor-wise feels great to me when not much else does. 

6. I've wanted these boots for three years. I got them on big sale earlier this year and they have been awesome in wet weather. I wore them Monday when I was driving all over creation doing contactless delivery to staff. I got to see some people including my soul sister Beth and it was so great but also sad knowing that is not going to be the norm for a while. No company holiday party etc. this year. 

7.  This week has been hard. Harder than in a while. My creativity is largely missing and it's hard to write again, in a time of year in which I really need both on demand for work. I have to work whenever those skills make themselves available, and sometimes that's 11 pm - 1 am. My focus in general is also off and I've made mistakes I'd never normally make. I'm tired and my brain feels fried. This Life in Corona Land year of hills and valleys, man. It's been a while since I've been in the valley and I don't miss it down here. I don't usually take the entire time between Christmas Eve and New Year's off because I like to have a quiet day or two to organize myself for the coming year and just because I find it hard to motivate in January after a prolonged time off. This year I have to burn the days but I need the break anyway, desperately. Just to not be responsible for anything for a while. The canine coworkers are fine either way.

8.  This complete rotten asshole (stole that from my BF Kim who is in education) is utterly insane to think career ed people who actually care about public education will take a damn word of advice from her. Particularly when they have spent the last four years sparring with her as the lead says. She is awful like the majority of this administration from hell. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Or let it. I don't fucking care. Just go. I'm not even going to get into the fucking ridiculous Wall Street Journal Op-Ed sexist patronizing patriarchal bullshit because I nearly stroked the fuck out over it last weekend and I am just not doing it today. I'm sick of all the bullshit and I want Congress to get survival checks to the American people right fucking now. People are suffering and we have the resources for that not to happen. If you can pass an astronomical military budget larger than the next 10 countries in the world combined and tax cuts for the rich you can keep people from hunger and eviction. Desperation breeds crime and then you'll blame that on people when it's your fucking fault. Get to fucking work.

9. Reminder: when you're feeling not great. Everyone is winging it. Everyone. 

 

10. Ecards - this year especially. I need to write it down or it's fucking gone.

What appears beyond the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts titles is what I'm listening to when I'm starting this - this week is Omaha by Counting Crows - I'd sort of like to turn my ticket in on this year and get my money back