tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44337380829749556942024-03-05T21:53:36.215-08:00The Klonopin ChroniclesPeople throw the term "bipolar" around a lot these days. It's been a label I have worn for thirty years. I'm calm enough now to articulate what it feels like to be so brilliant that you can't describe it. Which is pretty goddamn ironic, if you ask me. I write down what I think instead of saying it out loud so that I don't cause harm to myself or others.
You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. Oh wait, that’s me.
The Klonopin Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09000707731307885384noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-51847261748315009222019-02-26T19:11:00.000-08:002019-02-26T19:11:10.702-08:00So irritating, really<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I know there should be some structure to this narrative but I’m just going to start with what comes to mind. Maybe someday I’ll find an editor to help me corral all this nonsense into something worth reading in long form. But today I want to whine about shit that doesn’t matter like omg my ex died and never updated his will after we were divorced so GUESS WHO gets to be the executor of his estate and clean up all his messes post mortem? The good news is at least there is money to take care of his debts so I really have no business complaining. It could be SO MUCH WORSE if you can believe that. But fuck if I don’t come home from a long day of doing other people’s taxes (glad for the work) and 90 minutes on rainy mountain roads (glad for my cozy home in the redwoods) and then sit down with angry letters from creditors who don’t seem to understand that none of this is really my problem. I’ve just always been the responsible one and that’s the sad fact.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I would run away in a minute if I thought I could get away with it. But the kids, always the kids, even though they’re semi-adults now. They shouldn’t have to deal with this at their tender age. You should definitely be in your 30s AT LEAST when your parent dies. You shouldn’t be a sophomore in college and have to take incompletes for the semester that you have to make up over Christmas break because you simply can’t go back to school feeling the way you do.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You should definitely be in your 70s AT LEAST when your spouse or even (especially) your ex dies. All I can say to you sweet young things o</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ut there is if you get divorced, try to get your ex-spouse to change their will before they become an ex-person or at least have the decency to remarry so that their death is someone else’s problem, logistically-speaking. Because someone else should get to (and want to) display that urn (yeah, you know the one) and be glad for the opportunity to plan their loved one’s memorial (ugh do we really have to go out to the beach to scatter the you-know-what and then have food and stuff afterward ugh ugh ugh) and call up all the banks and creditors and lawyers and just everyone and deal with things like why is he still getting charged for phone service when I thought that nonsense was cancelled months ago - oh and who’s going to return the cable box - oh well I guess it’s easier just to pay for it, etc etc etc ad nauseam. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There was a pack of Camels in the glove compartment of his car so GUESS WHO is now sitting on the deck each night with a bottle of IPA and exactly one cigarette because I’m responsible even when I’m irresponsible if that makes any sense at all. I haven’t smoked since 1997 but goddamnit if my ex can die of organ failure from abusing his body for four decades then I guess I can smoke one cigarette a day and it’ll be okay. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sue me. I have a lawyer now. I can take it.</span></span></div>
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<br />The Klonopin Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09000707731307885384noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-63232349355899388652019-02-25T18:35:00.002-08:002019-02-25T18:35:52.283-08:00so my ex died a while back wtaf<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hey there. Been AFK for a few months now. I had to take a break to process (whatever that means) the events leading up to and away from the death of the illustrious Mr. K. I haven’t had the - well, get out the thesaurus - strength? Energy? Tenacity? Will? Enthusiasm? I. Simply. Could. Not. Each day ideas would occur to me, themes I should write about, memories, stories, jokes, even. This is great material, I really need to make the most of this, I would think. But maybe tomorrow, or next week, or after tax season.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9F6Iuu2CA34Ye1ozRGdLiLOmMzkKuLaEcw7VGgffPSKyhmmA0eFhWWY20qS2O4JovAJoRUg1kKZTVsrsIu8z11hgnbZU5AxcAYOKtJDDgbWaSkRNq7FNtg1V4I5tJGVfAzTMf9DS_SqFq/s1600/Screenshot+2019-02-25+at+6.10.21+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="464" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9F6Iuu2CA34Ye1ozRGdLiLOmMzkKuLaEcw7VGgffPSKyhmmA0eFhWWY20qS2O4JovAJoRUg1kKZTVsrsIu8z11hgnbZU5AxcAYOKtJDDgbWaSkRNq7FNtg1V4I5tJGVfAzTMf9DS_SqFq/s200/Screenshot+2019-02-25+at+6.10.21+PM.png" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“After all, I’ve suffered an enormous loss,” I said aloud to no one, as I installed myself in front of the tv with a Greyhound in one hand and a vape pen in the other. “I really can’t be expected to do more than the bare minimum. I need to take care of myself first.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, that’s been working pretty well for three months. I think it’s time to start writing, or at least typing again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I took down the Facebook page but I think I’ll bring it back up and see if anyone’s around. “I can’t believe you’re not posting,” said an IRL friend (yes, I do have a few). “There are so many people out there who follow you, they’re going to wonder what’s up. You really have to write something for them.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Great. Now on top of everything else, I have to worry about you lot. Kidding. I don’t. But I think about you. I want you to know everything’s okay with me. It’s intense. It’s painful. It’s definitely a struggle. A *journey* <gag> But it’s okay.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My ex died from drinking just like I said he would when I left him because he didn’t believe me and wouldn’t stop. Ain’t that a kick? Everything just like I predicted. I was finally proven right, after years of being alternately mocked and ignored. How do you say, “I told you so” to a dead man? I mean, is it before or after, “I miss you, you sonofabitch, and I didn’t know I would”?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So. Lots of ground to cover. All the feelings. All the things. My plan is to write snippets and post them once in a while, with an eye towards wrapping it all up in some kind of publication someday. But for now, really, it’s been a whole 30 minutes I’ve been sitting at this keyboard. I deserve a break. Now, where’d I put the grapefruit juice?</span></div>
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</span>The Klonopin Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09000707731307885384noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-88581676025029368542017-02-04T12:18:00.000-08:002017-02-04T12:52:25.137-08:00This. Is. Not. Normal.I don't know much about normal, but I know this what we have going on right now in our world is definitely not it.<br />
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I tend to shy away from politics on my blog. I used to say that Nutjobs have enough to worry about without dragging politics into it. But these days, I feel like I can't afford to turn away from the National Nightmare, and all the feelings that arise from witnessing it. Even people who have their shit together are losing it all over the place. So I decided to turn my attention away from my navel (gross) and out toward the world (really gross).<br />
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Maybe you found me from Twitter, which is awesome, because I have very little idea how that even works. I never really used Twitter, although I had my Facebook posts set up to repeat over there, like a bizarre echo chamber. Lately I've taken all the energy I used to focus on my Facebook page and moved it over there. Now I just post memes and funny dialogues with my boss or my son on Facebook, and save the political stuff for Twitter. Boundaries. Cool, right?<br />
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Anyway, welcome, Twitter folks. Have a stroll around.<br />
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And of course a hale and hearty "Namaste" to the Nutjobs. I'm sorry that I haven't posted much lately. In addition to the aforementioned National Nightmare, I also began taking creative writing, so there hasn't been much energy left to stay current with the blog. But just know that I'm out here, thinking about you, and worrying about you, and trying to find ways to help you feel less alone.<br />
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You don't have to be crazy to enjoy my blog. But it doesn't hurt. Oh who am I kidding? Of course it does.<br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92i5m3tV5XY">Namaste, y'all <folds hands, bows deeply></a><br />
<br />The Klonopin Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09000707731307885384noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-90318444877944701112016-11-23T07:07:00.000-08:002016-11-23T07:07:18.953-08:00The Annual Anonymous Winter Holiday Blog of Familial Hostility, National Nightmare Edition<span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;">It's that time of year again, the one we dread, especially those who made some piss-poor choices back in the day and are now regretting the consequences with every fiber of our beings. This winter in particular, the Familial Hostility will be at an all-time fevered pitch, as a result of . . . well, you know. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;">Each year, I ask the readers to send me their secret holiday greetings. The ones they wish they could say to their so-called families at this so-called season of giving. This year I couldn't bring myself to do it. Reading the infotainment that masquerades as news, scrolling through scathing social media, pounding my fist on the dashboard at drive-time radio, I am heartsick. So I thought I would dust off a post from last year, when we had no idea what horrors lay ahead of us, when we thought the worst thing about Thanksgiving was having to defend ourselves from the onslaught of familial passive (and not so passive) aggression. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Without further </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">clich<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16px;">éd </span></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">ado . . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am eternally grateful for my fussy-faced husband for finally stopping the 30-pack-of-beer-a-day habit. Thank you also for the fine case of genital warts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Guess he wasn't that fussy-faced after all)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fuck you all very much for eating all my jalapeño cheese dip and blaming it on the two-year-old.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(I hope he's potty-trained because that diaper will be insanity.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am thankful that I have enough self-control not to get all stabby with my fork when my sister's boyfriend chews with his mouth open and food drops out of his mouth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b><b>(That's pretty gross. If you're not using that fork, may I?)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b>No mom, you cannot pray my gay away. I'm afraid my sexuality doesn't quite work like that. So! Who wants pie?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(I do! A big gay piece of pie! And kisses!)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Daughter-in-Law -- go right back out the front door you came in and keep on walking. You’re a lazy slob who does absolutely nothing for your family. My son owns his own business and works 16 hours a day all while taking care of your daughter. You need to go home to your Minecraft family and have them cook you Thanksgiving dinner.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Could that happen? That would be fucking awesome.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eat, and get the fuck out so I continuing drinking this memory out of my mind.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Oh, Barkeep <rattles ice in empty glass> )</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are all immature, selfish assholes and I would rather eat ramen by myself. Your children are not cute. They are monsters you have created.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Preach. And don't forget the scrambled egg in the ramen. Because protein.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm glad you're all here to hear this together. I'm leaving my husband, and I never ever want him to come home or to be close to him and all I ever want to do is drink when all of you are around so fuck you. My lawyer and I are going to take half of your money.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(And then I'm going to pay my lawyer with the other half.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stop telling me how to raise my kids when I'm raising yours. Stop telling me I'm doing it wrong!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Back off, bitch, I got this.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ten fucking years, you sorry son of a bitch. I have supported you, rewritten my dreams, raised children alone through four fucking deployments and now you say you don't want to be married to me anymore? You say YOU HAVE NO MOTIVATION TO SAVE OUR MARRIAGE? Fuck you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(<b>Now we have no motivation to cancel that hitman.)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I just want full blown Tourette’s to sink in at the dinner table. CAN YOU PLEASE PASS THE MASHED POTATOES SO I CAN SHOVE THEM UP YOUR ASS! PIECE OF SHIT ASSHOLE DRUNK MOTHER FUCKER CUNT!!!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(So many doctors miss that Tourette's diagnosis the first time around.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I love each of you but if you got off your ass and washed a dish I'd love you more.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Just one from each of you would do it, I think.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, another year without a loved one here. Prison does that to families. We can only trudge on and hope no one else gets locked up this year. But at least we can all be thankful another criminal is off the streets. We miss you, Cousin Craig. I hope you got the soap on the rope I sent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Soap on a rope is funny in and of itself, but the prison thing was inspired.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, mom didn't love you more than anyone. She hated us all the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Bazinga.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stop wearing men's basketball shorts and t-shirts everywhere, you're a 53 year old teacher. Lose the mullet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Every family has that one guy . . . .)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks for showing up empty handed. I couldn't find anything better to do with my holiday than to cook for you ungrateful, mooching, sorry ass fat fucks. Happy Thanksgiving.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Something tells me they really DGAF about what you just said. Wasted words -- so frustrating.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thank you to Diesel fuel and my Mercedes’ longevity for making this drama-free Thanksgiving possible, far, far away from the people who make me need Ativan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Poetry.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To my mother in law: You are a narcissistic bitch who raised a couple of man-infants. Nice work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">("Narcissistic" is a word that gets a lot of airplay this time of year.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As you all know, a year ago today I was inpatient for depression and suicidal ideation. As you also know, not one of you were there for me. Despite that, I have gotten much better. I am NOT going to pretend that I have my shit together. But I'm getting there. Pass the wine!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Next year in Jerusalem! Wait. Wrong holiday.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thanks for leaving me with so much guilt I can't breathe when I sit next to you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(I felt that in my soul, no sarcastic)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kids, I just want to say how fucking disappointed I am in all three of you. I know you listened to your father when he said "It's all in her head, she's a psycho.” Fuck off. Love, Mom.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(APPLAUSE)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'd like to thank my mom who no longer speaks to me. I raised myself and YOU lost out. This is the last time I give you any power.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(STANDING OVATION)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Please tell me again that I'm such a bad parent for keeping my child and raising him and giving him everything he needs, not wants, NEEDS to succeed in life, when you’re only 24 and have had so many abortions your cooter is gonna fall out?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Crap. Could that really happen?)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">MIL: You are a self-centered narcissistic bitch. We are never speaking to you again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(She probably didn't hear you so it's just as well.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b>It would be really nice to actually be invited to dinner instead of having to call around asking which family member is hosting this year and then inviting myself.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Oh honey, I wish I knew you IRL because I would totally invite you -- before Halloween, even.)</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You are a rotten, abusive, piece of shit husband. And I am planning on divorcing your ass as soon as I can find the nastiest shark lawyer on the planet.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Hit me up, I know someone.)</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">I feel guilty for feeling depressed when I have so much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;"><b>(The realest of the real. Hang in there, honey. I promise you, it may not get better, but it will get different. You are not alone.)</b></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sláinte, you Nutjobs, you. </span></b></div>
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The Klonopin Chronicleshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09000707731307885384noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-18541353818189077622016-04-27T21:52:00.000-07:002016-04-27T21:58:49.248-07:00A Dream Recounted <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0aTHoYJiQ8AB26XXJEhU_dKGD_HohhQIjJSSzq2FqVD-9ZNIvy-qV17D2gOb5PGXo6zBd5-HguuzOUwdL0N8or5HNw0jevRt_vd9HndAR9_5QZhvhVgaiSKUAPWmn5vm1daNQY8R5778/s1600/birkenstocks+and+slouchy+socks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0aTHoYJiQ8AB26XXJEhU_dKGD_HohhQIjJSSzq2FqVD-9ZNIvy-qV17D2gOb5PGXo6zBd5-HguuzOUwdL0N8or5HNw0jevRt_vd9HndAR9_5QZhvhVgaiSKUAPWmn5vm1daNQY8R5778/s200/birkenstocks+and+slouchy+socks.jpg" width="150" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other people’s dreams are never interesting. The dream-teller will try to draw you in by adding (manufacturing) details about how you were in it a la “and then you were there wearing a polka dot dress with Birkenstocks and slouchy socks which is totally not your style.” But you’re not falling for it and you turn around in the middle of their sentence and go to the break room for some coffee. Please. Make it stop.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-905a39f4-5b26-f862-78b6-89166254f078" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I try really hard not to be that girl, the dream-teller, the annoying one. It’s really the worst kind of solipsism, a dream. Such personal, specific significance. It’s a story your brain is telling itself. No one else really needs to hear it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Having said that, l</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">ast night I had a dream that was so vivid and so interesting (and funny) and I actually remembered it (which never happens) so I’m writing about it and you can read it or not, that is totally up to you. I dreamed that I was at a party and someone got shot. No one was paying much attention, so I got on the phone with 911 trying to get direct them to the house, but I didn’t know the address. My loser alcoholic bike messenger boyfriend (I know, I know, #NotAllBikeMessengers) had brought me. He was always dragging me to parties where I didn’t know anyone and I never knew where we were. I sometimes think he did it on purpose because he knew I couldn’t leave without him if I didn’t know where I was (this was a long time ago, when I was even more timid and paralyzed by indecision than I am now). Other times I think that he wouldn’t have been capable of those kind of mind games, which let’s face it, are pretty sophisticated. In any event, I never had much fun at parties. I was always hopelessly too straight and uncool, and I never knew anyone anyway. I was always overjoyed if the hosts had a pet, because that way at least I would have someone to hang out with.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway. I knew we were in The City and it was one of those weird places where the address is different depending on what side of the house you’re on. I kept walking around with the cordless landline phone with the dispatcher murmuring encouragingly in my ear (you can do it, hon, just tell me what you see), looking around at street numbers placed strategically throughout the house, one number printed in gold on column in a corner in the hall, another on a wood placard by the door. None of it made any sense, and I could feel that anxiety welling up from the pit of my stomach, you know the one, the “I’m gonna be in so much trouble for this thing I didn’t do that I’m going to be blamed for anyway” feeling.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The dispatcher keeps intoning “what’s the cross street what’s the cross street what’s the cross street” and I keep whispering “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.” Finally she says, “Well, ask someone who’s with you” and I say “They’re all too fucked up.” And then I gasp with alarm because I realize that I must have blown someone’s cover somehow and that as soon as the authorities figure out where we are, we are all busted. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Seeing that I am going to be useless in establishing a location, the dispatcher tries to figure out an alternate plan. She says, “Well, I think I know where you are and they’re never going to get the emergency vehicle in there because the streets are too windy and narrow (and I think "hold up seriously this is San Fra-fucking-cisco") so go out back and describe what that’s like maybe they can get in through there.” So I pull back the curtains and slide open the glass door to reveal a sandy beach with the ocean about 20 yards away. And I say into the phone, “Plenty of room, Janet, but they’re gonna need a catamaran” and I thought that was about the funniest thing ever and you could hear her chuckling as well and then in horror I remembered why I was even on the phone with her in the first place. I was failing my mission of getting someone the fuck to the house to attend to this dying person who was almost certainly already a dead person because I was wandering around looking at indoor house numbers and making weak jokes with a benign and indulgent civil servant. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And I’m suddenly seized with this paroxysm of grief, like it suddenly hits me, this dude got shot and it’s my fault that no one is here helping him. I mean at least I should be doing CPR or something. The dispatcher asks me what’s wrong and I tell her “My friend just got shot” and she said “I thought you didn’t even know him.” And I said “To be quite honest, everything is my fault ultimately and this dream is just another manifestation of my horrible self-loathing and my compulsion to take care of everything all the time because no one else around me is capable.” And the dispatcher said, “Honey, I know just what you mean.” </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ldynOY6xU7EFx0s1RAmd15nR-6l4kLXCPSZPxQT7lkZCGZpDW04-MOEdvGh3PaMidYRqX0e22G6IxaOXgw-qlASkTY6BIM77_QTECAA7eLcsULDzd6sBAa6zGnz7NcK2f0XQTk21KUU/s1600/birkenstocks+and+slouchy+socks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ldynOY6xU7EFx0s1RAmd15nR-6l4kLXCPSZPxQT7lkZCGZpDW04-MOEdvGh3PaMidYRqX0e22G6IxaOXgw-qlASkTY6BIM77_QTECAA7eLcsULDzd6sBAa6zGnz7NcK2f0XQTk21KUU/s200/birkenstocks+and+slouchy+socks.jpg" width="150" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was the clearest damn dream. And the message it carried was resonating on every level. And the fact that I was explaining my interpretation to someone IN THE DREAM was so damn cool that I woke up and jumped out of bed and started writing it all down. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And you were in it, you know. Wearing a polka-dot dress with Birkenstocks and slouchy socks which is totally not your usual style.</span></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-34518239707842724392016-01-27T21:44:00.000-08:002016-01-27T21:54:22.595-08:00Where Have I Been? I'm Glad You Asked.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsE2UP6LQXjQCF89WNUCFTOo1zC-YV3_VezGahkhxiB0_1MO9o-WUsUyQtQy2cye3JqRw6gYxc-elyhcd2OwI6RjOUt5HzmXHQLyhdt8RDyo4aihJk638ocW6ES4dehd41zvwS63Lb2jg/s1600/197774_118433581585785_3592649_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsE2UP6LQXjQCF89WNUCFTOo1zC-YV3_VezGahkhxiB0_1MO9o-WUsUyQtQy2cye3JqRw6gYxc-elyhcd2OwI6RjOUt5HzmXHQLyhdt8RDyo4aihJk638ocW6ES4dehd41zvwS63Lb2jg/s320/197774_118433581585785_3592649_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hey you guys! You may or may not have noticed that I took my Facebook page down for a bit. People have been asking, so I need to let you know. I’m okay. I’ll probably bring it back up soon. I just lost my taste for it. Yanno? I felt like staying on top of it was sucking me dry. You guys need a lot of attention, and I don’t always have it in me to give it to you. You’re like houseplants or something. I forget to water you and you wither and I feel guilty. So instead I put you out on the patio and hope it rains and doesn’t get too cold. And OMG some of you (trolls I know, but still) with the negativity, misunderstanding on purpose, people who seem to feel the First Amendment applies to whatever the fuck axe they have to grind on someone else’s stage. But it’s all good. A little break never hurt anyone. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-d18a4372-869b-ae20-c489-f149e7d96f4d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What can I tell you except I’m battling the same things you guys are, watching in horror as American political-socioeconomic system (for lack of a better term) twists and writhes like an effigy in the wind. I really shouldn’t read the news and I DEFINITELY need to stop getting in comment wars on Facebook pages, that shit is for the birds. Roche Pharmaceuticals stock goes up five points any day I scroll through my Facebook feed, see a controversial story and wonder what gems await me in the comments section. What is the opposite of adrenaline because I need some of that after a good verbal jousting match with fellow members of the Screedwriters Guild. That’s not a typo, that’s me being clever. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What I’ve been thinking about lately, because I know you’re just aching to know (dripping sarcasm): I’m doing the math on whether it’s worse to die alone and be sad and scared about that or to die alone and give zero fucks about it, unless you count panic attacks (which are sneaking up on me with increasing and alarming frequency) in the fucks-given tally. This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. Thanks, Tyler Durden, Thanks, Chuck Palahniuk. One inexorable minute, the length of the pool, underwater with lungs bursting. Swimming metaphors. Kill me now.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m crying a lot lately. Mostly it’s just something that strikes me in the moment, I hear a song maybe, or someone says something either amazing or terrible. It just washes over me, this need to cry. Last weekend on our hike PreMed said this about her dad, “Pretending no one could see him behind the door of the liquor cabinet doing shots while the rest of the watched TV in the next room is NOT NORMAL, Momma. You did the right thing.” I cried when she said that because I felt so validated (i was right i was right i was right) and at the same time, miserable (i was wrong i was wrong i was wrong) that I had let it go on as long as it did before finally gathering up my “courage to change the things I can.” How long it took me to get The Gamer out of that toxic, toxic environment, to set up a nice, quiet place for him to feel calm and safe, to be himself and not tensed up all the time as you ACOA know all too well, a groovy crib to have friends over without worrying about what they'd be walking into, a little taste of Normal-As-I-Have-Come-To-Understand-It. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So anyway. I cry a lot. Out of nowhere. Whatever. I’m still a BAMF. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back to the forever alone thing -- I’m mostly okay with it. I was talking with my online friend the other day. (I have very few IRL friends. We'll wait while you unhinge your shocked jaw.) The conversation went a little something like this:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: I really don’t need anyone in my life right now or maybe ever. I mean, who else thinks popcorn and Coke Zero for dinner while binge-watching The Good Wife is a perfect way to spend an evening?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Him: Good point. You should put that in your online dating profile. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: Yeah, about that. I really only made that to gather material for the blog.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Him: Which you still haven’t written.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: Good point.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And I really do prefer it, this being alone, although I guess it would be nice to have someone in my life to make plans with that I would then dread, and resent the person for taking up so much space in my head when let’s face it, all I really want to do is lie around in sweats, drinking coffee and messing with people on the internet. I really don’t feel lonely until I think about what my life must look like to other people. I feel their scorn masquerading as unnecessary (and unsolicited) pity for me because I prefer the richness of my solitude to wearing a bra and waiting for a bartender to notice me so he can get started patronizing me for my drink choice while making agonizing small talk WITH THEM. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is that so wrong? <hint: nope></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm going to post this now because I'm out of ideas (LIE - I'm really just lazy and I want to be done) and because I wanted to let you guys know I'm okay. I know you worry, but you can k</span><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">nock that off now -- all is well as far as I can tell but take that with a grain of salt. What does that even mean, "take it with a grain of salt?" Where did that come from? Too bad we don't have a big book or something we could look stuff up in. Someone should get on that.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-26566367082826281792015-11-16T21:05:00.000-08:002015-11-16T21:08:14.290-08:00I'm Starting Christmas Before Thanksgiving This Year and IDGAF What You Think<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WFy3ZcK-2jsiv-8tOSyUosZUryMIaZp7kxmojtJjz7AJne3_ZwT7lmgu_2ib9Psuh-2bUx4j9z00UB6BjSzgRKlwLuPJ9_m6x9YRzF3jH2dvaVY6FdiDN-hcFGFeJH26SvsS7Yc6tSc/s1600/meh+christmas+lights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1WFy3ZcK-2jsiv-8tOSyUosZUryMIaZp7kxmojtJjz7AJne3_ZwT7lmgu_2ib9Psuh-2bUx4j9z00UB6BjSzgRKlwLuPJ9_m6x9YRzF3jH2dvaVY6FdiDN-hcFGFeJH26SvsS7Yc6tSc/s200/meh+christmas+lights.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m putting up Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving this year, and IDGAF if you don’t like it. Well, IDGAF is a little strong. If I truly didn’t GAF, I wouldn’t be writing about why I’m doing it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.8; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I used to be like you, scoffing and sneering and decrying a culture that wants to usher in Christmas front and center by the first of November. And I still do mourn the commercialism that drives the early start to the “Holiday Season.” I</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.8; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"> loathe Christmas music, except for the sacred stuff that’s no longer sacred to me, but simply beautiful. When Gregorians chant in time to my windshield wipers on my rainy evening commute (please god all I want for Christmas is eight inches . . . of rain before the first of the year). When Rickie Lee Jones (and I) belt out “O Holy Night” while I slave over my famous (microwave) fudge. When Kate and Anna McGarrigle murmur “Il Est Ne” a deux as I hit “buy with one-click” and scroll through what “other people shopped for.” When the Christmas carols roll out, I am transported to the few good memories of my childhood, when my family ruled the roost in the Episcopalian church choir loft. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But in general, like you (I’m guessing here), I find a lot of the Christmas trappings trite and tiresome (always avoid alliteration). I do judge the people down the street who already have that quilted replica of Santa wrapped around a tree in their front yard, the result of a single-sleigh mishap, pranked by his reindeer. There are lots of things to make fun of, this time of year, lots of things that make us cringe -- hypocrisy, materialism, and plain and simple poor taste. And I dislike them all the more for the effect that has on the good stuff -- it’s good stuff, man, and I want to get to it. But the way we have fucked up Christmas these days make me want to bury my holiday lights in a bushel basket full of manger straw. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This holiday season is different. I’m in a new space, a good space, there’s no chaos, there’s no destruction, it’s not out of control. I feel like it’s safe here. I feel like my Christmas decorating could survive, even thrive. I could put up a few plain white lights, tasteful, you know? With a bunch of candles that smell like cinnamon and spruce. I’m not going to cut down a tree, even though my friend the environmental expert, who has been to a week-long seminar in Florida with got-damn Al Gore, told me “It’s okay because Christmas trees are planted to be sustainable, so get out your axe and do your thing.” No. I’m getting a little artificial tree and it’s not going to be tacky, even though when I mentioned it, I got an eyeroll from The Gamer. Right. The arbiter of good taste. Bitch, please.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgol8a-RDXj0xI6yRBgtg3yzbJz4yunlbaWxRuRsLDPMdo8nLwNtJiOCUGnG7v62WaTUSBK9R5Rqg55fVuW7fknxJ5AW_IeG8MPUbe0dA653VmGb1dKP0mtOFBynJnhp3p-u0zQwquFM7k/s1600/12227835_1072940839403395_5483273211670821934_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgol8a-RDXj0xI6yRBgtg3yzbJz4yunlbaWxRuRsLDPMdo8nLwNtJiOCUGnG7v62WaTUSBK9R5Rqg55fVuW7fknxJ5AW_IeG8MPUbe0dA653VmGb1dKP0mtOFBynJnhp3p-u0zQwquFM7k/s320/12227835_1072940839403395_5483273211670821934_n.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m gonna make cookies. I’m gonna lay in pounds of butter and bags of flour and sugar and good chocolate and nuts and just bake the fuck out of dozens and dozens of cookies. And wrap empty Pringles cans with Christmas paper and lay those cookies in there with cupcake liners and take them around to all my friends. Well, maybe not that last part. That presumes that I have friends, or that I’m even willing to leave the house. But I *am* making massive amount of cookies, and anything is possible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I might even write a Christmas letter. Yes, the dreaded Christmas letter. In the past I shunned the Christmas letter, mostly because I was so jealous of the ones I got that I ripped them up without even reading them. I couldn’t even begin to write one because of all the horrible things that were happening that I was pretending weren’t happening, and how hollow I felt inside when I thought about the lies I would write instead of the agony that was really going on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This year is different. I have some okay things to say this year, even though it’s awkward to talk about where I am now and how I got here. I’m happy in a safe space. I’m taking care of myself and my son. I’m listening when I tell myself nice things, and telling that voice to fuck off when it turns mean and angry. I’m working on a book and might get it published. I’m planning to semi-retire and move to Mexico. GOOD SHIT IS HAPPENING YOU GUYS. Don’t pay any attention to those other assholes trying to wreck everything. Nothing to see there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which brings me to the final reason I’m getting ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving this year. I was thinking about this despite the Paris attacks, and the Lebanon attacks, and the Kenyan attacks and the daily violence against people of color in our own country that goes unremarked despite the brutal and pervasive injustice. In that context, it’s even more important to me. I’m a person who shields her soft and tender heart with sharp and scornful self-deprecation and impatient intolerance for ignorance (alliteration alert again). Right now, for the first time in a long long time, I don’t hate people. I mean, of course I hate certain people, like ISIS and racist homophobic idiots and other wastes of oxygen, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.8; white-space: pre-wrap;">but the point is, I don’t hate the usual people in my everyday life. I feel kindly toward other motorists, (well, except that broad in the Lexus SUV who WILL NOT YIELD when I’m trying to move over even with my turn signal on bitch I’m going to miss my exit). I’ve been holding the elevator door for people in my building instead of surreptitiously punching the close button over and over. I feel like overall life is worth living, and people are worth the effort. I know, right? It’s like my whole life has been a lie. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I told my son that I was putting the Christmas decorations up this week and he looked at me as though I had sprouted two heads. “But, Mom,” he started to protest. I waved him away with that hand thing that Drake does, you know the one. “Do not get in between me and this feeling.” I said. “I don’t hate people right now and I want to make that not-hating-people feeling last as long as possible. So Christmas starts right now and it doesn’t end until I say it does.”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhs7nuf5C58pYgtYS8KLZdOh5rdqNyyMxlNI0GZNRAVSTVabTNlYoBBSpIoZt_tQ14OeHADNOSgD52bQPreu-uMK4RiP1HsxzvYZv7Mf3nRwZihEhj41iwi0bRNVqNdW5ct9dhPul0Smc/s1600/Drake+hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhs7nuf5C58pYgtYS8KLZdOh5rdqNyyMxlNI0GZNRAVSTVabTNlYoBBSpIoZt_tQ14OeHADNOSgD52bQPreu-uMK4RiP1HsxzvYZv7Mf3nRwZihEhj41iwi0bRNVqNdW5ct9dhPul0Smc/s320/Drake+hand.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So yeah, I will be that asshole with the lights up this week. I will be the one writing that ridiculous Christmas letter. MAYBE. I’m still not 100 percent on that. Maybe I’ll just send everyone the link to my blog. (Can you imagine -- haha Merry Christmas jk). I will be the one making a list and checking it twice. And handing out five dollar bills when I leave the store even though I usually don’t carry cash. I will be the Grinch whose small heart grew three sizes in one day. Who let her guard down in the triumph of hope over experience. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You know those people who should be shot? You know the ones who roll up on, like, November 2, simpering, “Are you ready for Christmas yet?” The same ones tell you when it’s Friday every week and ask you if it’s hot/cold/rainy enough for you. Yeah, you know them. And this year, I am looking forward to them. Bring it on, good people. Come at me, bro. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.8; white-space: pre-wrap;">Am I ready for Christmas? Hellz yah, I’m ready. You bet your sweet sugarplum I am. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-25425909261576117602015-06-24T21:59:00.001-07:002015-06-24T22:24:40.235-07:00Light the Candles, Pour the Wine<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5DTXWilOwEcJi-34j8NIEL0pLV9nytyzEesPySTOgX5DbgoW5NzIZeyOlwKfvttJP-ZXFviol6T1OnFUbpzeUN7jsb-rhCU9FB52EaJIjWhrW7CW0Vo2u3MQIBf8kzvXM2i28h3-3e8/s1600/10995304_543952949092872_2738062322184122164_n.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5DTXWilOwEcJi-34j8NIEL0pLV9nytyzEesPySTOgX5DbgoW5NzIZeyOlwKfvttJP-ZXFviol6T1OnFUbpzeUN7jsb-rhCU9FB52EaJIjWhrW7CW0Vo2u3MQIBf8kzvXM2i28h3-3e8/s400/10995304_543952949092872_2738062322184122164_n.png" width="400" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I shared this quote on my personal Facebook page today. I almost shared it to the big page, but let's face it, "after thought" should have been one word and I'm pretty </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: line-through; white-space: pre-wrap;">anal-retentive</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> particular about stuff like that. It's important that stuff I post to the page not have typos and grammar mistakes and shenanigans like that all over the place. Anyway, I collect those</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> inspirational af quotations. I click "like" over and over and comment things like “word to all of this” or “THIS FOREVER” or sometimes something like “Ain’t that a bitch?” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This particular quote is about not holding back, not caring what other people think, not limiting yourself or depriving yourself or censoring yourself, because ultimately, you’re going to be dead so who gives a fuck unless you enjoyed yourself? Yanno? And it always resonates with me, I always do that mental fist-pump, you know, f’yeah man, true story, I gotta remember that. And why don’t I? And why am I the kind of person that needs to be reminded, why aren’t I think kind of person that is ALREADY DOING THIS? Why am I not living my life like this already? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because, basically, I suck. So much for inspiration.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My friend liked the photo, and posted a comment that made me smile. “Burn the good candles.” She is so right. Right now I am looking at a beautiful arrangement of candles and I don’t even have a way to light them. I’m going to have to twist up a paper towel and light that from the gas stove and then light each one of the candles with that like a fucking acolyte. Go ahead and google “acolyte” but I’ll save you the time and tell you it means the assistant candle-lighter at an Episcopalian worship service. Like so: </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiho97UXSyaeFnCAlcW9MAu0FuS73tnxjeg8UqBfV5zMyTxyaPEndtKiqzzBixuuWw43in4JXaD0INP6Vd8bCjy4IwAh7ohoPv07gdZjFO7c_VtWXdtxFiUMgAZ9LPH6nE4rf_ET7arUeo/s1600/acolyte.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiho97UXSyaeFnCAlcW9MAu0FuS73tnxjeg8UqBfV5zMyTxyaPEndtKiqzzBixuuWw43in4JXaD0INP6Vd8bCjy4IwAh7ohoPv07gdZjFO7c_VtWXdtxFiUMgAZ9LPH6nE4rf_ET7arUeo/s1600/acolyte.JPG" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because this whole thing reminds me of the last time I read something inspirational af like this. And I asked myself, “What are you waiting for with this 2003 Regusci Cab that is staring at you like, ‘Drink me ffs it’s too damn hot in your house and I would be great in another five years if cellared properly which is like the opposite of what you did so let’s go before it’s too late.’” And then I said to myself, “He’s right, you know,” which is a very odd thing to say when the antecedent of the pronoun is a bottle of wine. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The point is, what are we waiting for? When am I going to cook the meal or have the people over or stage the event that merits the serving of this fantastic bottle of wine? (Hint: Not bloody likely any time soon). And that shouldn’t matter anyway because who is going to appreciate this wine more than me? (Hint: no one). None of my friends know wine well enough to appreciate it except Bossman and I spend enough time with him each week already so, no.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggguetonfM_yxDdJHDBPqO8J-9RS_Wiva9MKdxtMrP2bQdun2h_7151DirntHIs78dZvPZ8VsJGgdts1hjEw1Je0TKaI-FRQy3D-dRcWiSPUXM3rjX6YBXcerJ9ZRXZhNqt-lQ3HPSERY/s1600/regusci.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggguetonfM_yxDdJHDBPqO8J-9RS_Wiva9MKdxtMrP2bQdun2h_7151DirntHIs78dZvPZ8VsJGgdts1hjEw1Je0TKaI-FRQy3D-dRcWiSPUXM3rjX6YBXcerJ9ZRXZhNqt-lQ3HPSERY/s320/regusci.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I pull the 2003 Regusci Cab from its place on the shelf and dust it off. Yes, I know I just moved six months ago, but dust is dust and it won’t be denied. I get the corkscrew (now people are going to yell at me about how I should be using some other contraption besides a corkscrew but honestly, just save it because I am in no mood to be lectured) and open it up. But the sad thing is that I waited too long to drink this wine and I didn’t store it properly because there was too much variation in temperature and moving it around a fair bit what with hiding it from my ex in several different places over the last couple of years. ANYWAY. The cork dried out and broke off in the middle of the bottle so I had to strain the wine through cheesecloth only I didn’t have cheesecloth so I tried a paper towel but that was an epic fail so I just poured it into a glass and tried to filter out the pieces of cork with my teeth but that didn’t really work either. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the point of the story is drink your damn wine before nonsense like that happens. Because I’m dying a little inside to think of how I wrecked that wine by saving it for something special. #irony </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">HEY I’M SPECIAL, yanno? Just because I am. Special enough to drink the wine and light the candles and celebrate EVERY DAY. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Also privately, I’m high-fiving myself with incredible relief that that scenario didn’t happen with Bossman standing there watching me fuck up one of his favorite wines. The end.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-77584569431442047692015-06-22T20:25:00.000-07:002015-06-22T20:25:31.065-07:00500 Words, Day 30 - End Game<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Wrapping up the #500WordsADay experiment via @KaleandCigarettes with one last post. Looking back over the last 30 days, I see that I’ve written more posts in the last two months than the last two years combined. I asked at one point whether it was better to write every day to see what came of it, or to write only when inspiration struck. The consensus was, “write every day,” because you lot are a bunch of suck-ups, basically. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-fcef8025-1e69-10ff-3ed6-974e9e68cdc6" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But let’s do a little recap, shall we? Some observations. How meta. (I got to say that AGAIN and I’m thrilled). Anyway. Some overarching themes emerged. There were quite a few where I was casting about wildly in search of a topic. Where it was time to put 500 words on the screen and basically I just let whatever came into my head out through my fingers and called it good. Well, no. I called it shitty and then I called it done. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Winning at wallowing. </span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There was perhaps too much wallowing. Although I tend to rock the wallow overall, if you don’t mind my saying. The third person narrative turned out well. A bunch of you really liked that. Hell, I really liked it too. Award Night, Kitchen Work, Round We Spin. Yeah, those were good. I went back and I read those a lot. (Spoiler: I. Cried. Every. Time.) Reading back over those make me want to pull my shit together and shop it, maybe see if there is someone who would be interested in it. I have no idea how to do that. Shoot me a message if you have some guidance for me on that. (minasantorini@gmail.com and I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret doing that so don't spam me, bro)</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">There were a couple of funny ones that turned out well, I thought. The OkCupid one, the Senior Discount. The Sign Says Yield, the hiking ones, both of them. Twitter. So, yeah, that book is gonna be bouncing around a fair bit. (SURPRISE) </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe make it two books. One that’s composed of all the cutesy ramblings, and one that’s a “thinly disguised </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">roman à clef”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as someone put it, where I write about all my problems in the third person to make them seem more literary and less pathetic. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Haven’t even figured out the first step and already I’m one volume shy of a trilogy. Besides, I’m still waiting for everyone to die so they don’t find out what I wrote about them. Or what I wrote about myself. Will the real Klonnie please . . . oh for fuck’s sake. Enough. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">One result of this experiment has is that I have resolved to write every day, even if I don’t post the fruits of the exercise. If I treat writing like a job, I might take it more seriously. I might really try to do something with it. It may end up being nonsense, but maybe it’s like that room full of monkeys, banging away on typewriters. Eventually one of them’s gonna type out some Shakespeare. And win a goddamn Primate Pulitzer or something. It could happen. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It means a lot to me that you guys read this nonsense and get something out of it. I appreciate all the feedback, I love hearing from you. Thank you reading, and writing, and getting it. Seriously. You have no idea.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-8172037565729266322015-06-21T13:26:00.000-07:002015-06-21T13:26:52.981-07:00500 Words, Day 29 - Mason Jars<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just spent a half hour looking around on my Facebook page for something I wrote about Mason jars that I was going to use to get started on 500 Words, Day 29. I failed to post on the appointed day, but a deal is a deal so I’m just going to finish up a few days behind schedule. If I’ve learned anything about myself on this month’s voyage, it’s that when I say I’m going to do something, I take it very seriously. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-a0bfcb83-17c6-2a03-456a-9a827802f443" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So now I’m working with that sick feeling you get sometimes when you have to reconstruct some work you did that was pretty decent at the time, but now what was brilliant about it is escaping you so you have to write about the process of writing the story instead of the story itself. How meta! (I love that phrase that I learned this month, so thank you to The Frozen Yogi, Ph.D.) </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The background: We were going through glasses faster than the dishwasher could keep up, because in addition to moving in my daughter’s lowlife drug-dealing boyfriend, my ex had also moved his nephew in from Alabama. “Just a few weeks while he figures a living situation out,” was how it was explained to me, but by the time I myself had moved out six months later, he was still living there, rent-free, despite having located a job where he made more money that I did. (That sentence is needs some real structural help but let’s leave it for now because I spent a lot of time looking for the Facebook post instead of writing the piece I was going to use it for, and now there’s very little time left to write, let alone edit.)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s how I knew that I had posted the vignette sometime between August 2012, when Nephew moved in and February 2013, when I moved out and stopped caring whether there were enough glasses to drink out of between dishwasher cycles. I had gone to Goodwill because I had wanted to buy a bunch of glasses that I wouldn’t care about if they broke because cheap. But of course I found really awesome glasses that I really cared about when they broke because conflicted. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I was there, perusing the shelves of glassware, I saw a young woman, maybe 22 or so, who appeared to be looking frantically for something in particular. She hurriedly pushed aside the glasses until she came across a Mason jar, setting each one she found carefully in the handbasket she had lined with a silk blouse that I recognized from the women’s clothing racks.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She turned to me. “If you see any more glasses like this, can you grab them for me? You know, if you don’t want them. I know they’re hard to come by.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Actually,” I offered helpfully, “They sell them by the dozen at OSH and a couple other places around here. Are you doing a canning project today? What are you going to put up?” </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blank look. I couldn’t tell if she was stymied by the question or the discovery that her search was unnecessary. “Canning project? What do you mean?”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I mean, you know, are you making jam or spaghetti sauce or pickles or what?”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, I’m having a barbecue. I’m making mojitos and the guys are bringing beer.” She furrowed her brow quizzically. “Do you mean people use these glasses to make jam and pickles? How funny.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am not even kidding right now. That really happened. And when I wrote about it the first time, I told it a lot better than this, which is why I’m mad at Facebook right now. And mad at myself for not preserving greatness. Haha.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUP4PbOEWRlZx5tYH_bI43akw3QVSmuw4ZclMwC6R3mwDGuHhmoAMQ-dpBJuXyJPc7c2IImVTzHeZByL1EI6mfolJd5nLw5DJvx_VQvXlffoM6JT4FgTNaodqgAbotUJMT_B__A1k-cNs/s1600/mason+jar+mojito.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUP4PbOEWRlZx5tYH_bI43akw3QVSmuw4ZclMwC6R3mwDGuHhmoAMQ-dpBJuXyJPc7c2IImVTzHeZByL1EI6mfolJd5nLw5DJvx_VQvXlffoM6JT4FgTNaodqgAbotUJMT_B__A1k-cNs/s320/mason+jar+mojito.jpg" width="291" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-65451917399199210042015-06-20T21:31:00.000-07:002015-06-20T21:31:40.165-07:00500 Words, Day 28 -- Violated Space <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She hadn’t known her son had plans with his dad today. Around ten a.m. there had been a noise at the window. She had glimpsed a male figure walking by the half-opened blinds in the living room. She had assumed that it was her neighbor, walking his dog. And in fact, her neighbor had walked past the window at that moment, which confused her when she realized that there was a second person there, and that it was her ex.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghomCWxRZYozU779JOWq0A5ZJnbUlp0VjYZkgrPH9HcUOH5W6UGTSFDeuRb06hYws_psCMkmm9m8QwxDLqLqePf3UCaw75b7GxTWSkJE1Z8ZbRIPLHaRGSnxr6HnvhhcXUiuRRPmvvfSU/s1600/new-types-of-blinds-with-we-offer-the-following-types-of-blinds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghomCWxRZYozU779JOWq0A5ZJnbUlp0VjYZkgrPH9HcUOH5W6UGTSFDeuRb06hYws_psCMkmm9m8QwxDLqLqePf3UCaw75b7GxTWSkJE1Z8ZbRIPLHaRGSnxr6HnvhhcXUiuRRPmvvfSU/s320/new-types-of-blinds-with-we-offer-the-following-types-of-blinds.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A dozen thoughts flew threw her mind at once. The first one, and this screamed inside her head GO AWAY (what are you) GO AWAY (doing here) GO AWAY. It was primal, not cerebral, a feeling-thought-no-feeling coursing through her reptile brain. The veep veep veep of the violins in the Psycho shower scene. The adrenaline shot through her, and her first instinct was to duck and hide. Don’t see me. Don’t be here, but if you have to be here, then let’s pretend I’m not. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The screaming fit she threw in her head was followed quickly by self-doubt. “Dammit I don’t want to be that person, that woman who is so crazy that she won’t let their father of her children into the house he pays for,” she thought. She didn’t want that to be his narrative. She didn’t want to give him any material for the stories he tells about how he is the wronged party in all of this, how she and her craziness drove him away even before she left on a whim. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He had skulked around outside the door. He might have texted her son, but he was curiously tech-challenged for an engineer. She concluded he must have rapped on her son’s window, peering in like some kind of fatherly Peeping Tom. Her son came out, saying over his shoulder, “Just gotta put my shoes on.” He didn’t look at her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She sat at the kitchen table, composing her face into a neutral mask that would not betray her. She would not ask what they were going to do. She would not ask why she had not been consulted, or even notified about this impromptu outing. She didn’t follow her usual pre-departure, didn’t ask the usual questions, did you eat, do you need money, when will you be back. She sat, impassive, resolute. She sent a silent message to her ex with her mind: You have no effect on me, even though you want to. You’re trying to manipulate me, but I am immune. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She wants to throw open the door and hurl invectives at him, where is the paperwork the lawyers need, why don’t you return their calls, how long are you going to stall on the settlement, why are you such an asshole, costing me so much money, forcing me to go to court to compel you to do the right thing. But to do that would be to acknowledge that what he does affects her in any way.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why do you hate me so much, he had asked her one night, his voice thick with bourbon, his stance in the doorway unsteady. I don’t hate you, I nothing you, she said. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As her son muttered something in parting and closed the door behind him, the tears that lived permanently at the outskirts of her eyes welled up again. She sat at the kitchen table, lost in thought. She wondered if it would be easier to recover from death of a spouse than from the end of a marriage that trails off weakly with no real resolution, just denial and blame and awkward avoidance. Her chair scraped the floor as she got up wearily and began to inventory the fridge and cupboards to make a list of groceries they would need for the coming week.</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-86221599499871970582015-06-15T00:39:00.002-07:002015-06-16T22:22:52.727-07:00500 Words, Day 26 and 27 -- Too Many Words Written About Few Words Spoken <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Tonight I’m going to write about the words I said today. Out loud. To other people. There weren’t many. I love days like the one I had today. Let’s see, I got up and behold there was coffee and the Lord said indeed the coffeemaker has been blessed with a timer that there shall be coffee with no effort whatsoever upon arising. And verily, there was no other individual in my home except myself. As much as I love weekend mornings with my son, and cooking all the pancakes and french toast with lots of real maple syrup because I’m on Atkins and I can’t eat that shit but I love watching him because I’m a masochistic voyeuse. No, The Gamer went to stay at his dad’s this weekend, and you know what? Thank SBJ because it was getting hella awkward, dancing around that elephant in the room. He should spend some time there, with his dad, they both need it. And let’s face it, I need it too. Maybe someday I’ll have a dude in my life and he’ll stay over on nights like that, but for right now, I don’t and that’s JUST FINE with me because space and distance and privacy. I have never been really alone in my whole life unless you count my childhood and let’s face it, kids shouldn’t have that kind of alone time growing up. I mean hours on end, not ignored exactly, but “left to my own devices.” Deconstructing that phrase would be a fun rhetorical exercise, don’t you think? What does that even mean? For me it meant reading and writing and pretending I was a back-up singer for James Taylor and Elton John. And knitting while I listened to Top 40 on AM radio. The sailor said, Brandy, you’re a fine girl. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 22.5818176269531px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Double yoo eff I ell. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-65f8e05f-f617-b20b-b52c-f994dce76f16" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But I digress. (Surprise!) After I had my coffee, and cleaned the stove (this was the weekend for that because I didn’t cook breakfast as I mentioned), did a load of laundry and cleaned the bathroom, it was time for The Hike. Which really was a hike this time, not like the other time, which that one is more of a walk. But this one is a little too real of a hike, actually, with a lot of what I call gratuitous descent which is a pleasant surprise but also kind of a drag since you worked so hard at climbing, and you would have to do that again very shortly. So big whoop it was six miles and I got a lot of cool shots like this one with MY PHONE if you can believe that shit. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhja04ZnQPi04y6x0l4iOIqY1EizQB1LyYTgDyJ3nG8l01zNPbggYJAZxuAiGouTwlCXHGvMn0BNez7VkkGP3XSZNOlgSp3_YAD5piWRmhfqcaXq7FJLvumq2mNnPNubKI_m6rXpUmonzw/s1600/13812_816644331764703_5349496519478171708_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhja04ZnQPi04y6x0l4iOIqY1EizQB1LyYTgDyJ3nG8l01zNPbggYJAZxuAiGouTwlCXHGvMn0BNez7VkkGP3XSZNOlgSp3_YAD5piWRmhfqcaXq7FJLvumq2mNnPNubKI_m6rXpUmonzw/s320/13812_816644331764703_5349496519478171708_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Guess what? Got to be two o’clock in the afternoon and still no words spoken. The last thing I had said was the night before and it was “Are you fucking me?” when the cashier said “That’s 9.95” for my small popcorn and bottle of Coke Zero. Well, no, that was the penultimate thing I said, which means “next to the last” and is basically my favorite word ever. The ultimate thing I said was, “Thank you, and sorry for the swear,” but guess what, I wasn’t sorry. Anyway, that was the night before around 8:00 p.m., and then I said “shit I should have gotten here earlier” when I saw that I would have to sit way in front, but I didn’t say that to anyone but myself so that hardly counts because I talk to myself all the live-long day. I saw “I’ll See You in My Dreams” and I can never remember the title for some reason, so I have to keep googling “Blythe Danner luminous” because that was how the reviewer described her. Another great word, luminous, and accurate as applied to Blythe Danner in this film. And it had Sam Elliot, so it was a slam-dunk in my book or basket as the case may be. It had this young man whom I recognized at the outskirts of Memorytown, but I couldn’t quite place him, just out of reach he was in my mind. Maybe from Wes Anderson films? I couldn’t get it, and it was alternately fun and annoying to try to think of his name, or at least where I knew him from. So roll credits on this sweet little film, and get the actor's name, Martin Starr, and I google him on my phone (because when the lights come up, I figure that pesky phone restriction has been lifted as well) and come to find out it’s Bill Haverchuck from Freaks and Geeks, looking nothing like his character there, but I guess enough like him that I would recognize him in this movie. So that brings me to another one of the few things I said out loud: “I knew it! I knew I knew him from somewhere.” And once again, I hadn’t really said that to anyone, although the couple trying to sidle past me to the aisle were a little startled by my enthusiasm. “Bill Haverchuck, Sam’s friend on Freaks and Geeks, that was the pool boy.” I did say that directly to them, but they were having none of it. So I instantly regretted it, realizing as I did that the bit about the popcorn was not in fact the penultimate thing I said, and I kind of wasted thirteen pretty gratuitous words on people who didn’t care enough to deserve them, but the sentence was said, and I couldn’t take it back. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So back to the hike, where I still haven’t spoken a word to another person. But hiking, see, you have greeters and non-greeters when hiking and it can be super awkward if you’re a greeter encountering non-greeters. Me, I’m a greeter, which I bet doesn’t fit with what you know of me, but hiking is as close to team sports as I get. I feel a camaraderie with people who will drive a long time to walk in nature, and if that doesn’t merit the monosyllabic version of “namaste” then I don’t know what. So I had several times where I said “hi” to people I encountered and some mofos said “hi” back and a couple mofos did not and life is like that sometimes. You can meet with rejection on a beautiful hike and not feel some kind of way about it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So after the hike I didn’t say another word to anyone until I got to the gym, where I said “hi” to the guy at the front desk. I didn’t need say "hi" because you just scan your card yourself so I don’t even know what that dude is doing there except to give you the side eye if you take two towels instead of one. But I like two towels because I like to wrap my hair up in one of them and dry off with the other. This time I didn’t take any towels, so I feel like I should be able to put one in the bank, but I seriously doubt anyone really cares that much. I was just going to do my weights for a few minutes on my way home from the hike. I worked on my arms and my gut. You may recall the moment of truth in the hotel bathroom with all the mirrors and fluorescent lights from a couple of weekends ago. My legs are still pretty good plus I had just hiked for three hours so I gave them the day off. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I went home to take a shower which felt so damn good that I probably stayed in there a bit longer than I should have because Drought Guilt. Then it was time for Movie Night again because I really liked going by myself the night before. I could make this a thing, this movie-going. This time I saw “Spy” with Melissa McCarthy, whom I adore. But that brings me to the last thing I said. It wasn’t to the popcorn person because this time I made my popcorn at home and poured my Coke Zero from my can into the bottle from last night. Because JFC I can’t afford to make Movie Night a habit unless I bring my own snacks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But they must have renovated the movie theatre since the last time I was there because I am not fucking kidding when I tell you they have, like, LA-Z-BOY recliners up in that bitch now. And assigned seating so that when you buy that ticket you know you are not going to have to maneuver your way over people to find a seat that turns out was actually a seat for a jacket. Come on, people, that’s just weak. Anyway, I climbed into my assigned LA-Z-BOY and after the hike and the weights and everything, it felt incredible. I got out my popcorn and Coke Zero even though the lights were still up, because seriously what are they going to do, make you throw it out? </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It was simply an amazing day, capped by the last thing I said out loud to another person, was when I turned to the couple next to me, patted the arm of my leather chaise lounge, and said, "Are these new?” and they concurred that it must be so, because they hadn't seen them before. I was pretty relieved that it was not just me. Fucking awesome weekend, even if I did have to work yesterday. I didn’t HAVE to work, but I like to come in sometimes because I get tons done when I don’t have to talk to people. And I have written 1,600 words to describe the 41 I said in over 24 hours, when I was only supposed to write 500. There’s a word for that and that word is “ironic.”</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-27339036776426879752015-06-13T18:46:00.000-07:002015-06-13T18:48:00.833-07:00500 Words, Day 25 -- Coming Down<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I feel like all I am doing with this experiment is writing about all the sadness and pain of the last several years. That and depression and feeling so horrible. It seems that way because I keep going back through stuff I started writing the past, searching for something to dust off and make into 500 words. It’s always so much easier to edit than to create (especially if it’s someone else’s work lol). Yanno? I pick up one of these drafts, do a word count, write an intro, boom, 500 words. Done. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do feel this way a lot, it’s true. But I think some good writing comes out of it. So bear with me. Maybe I’ll be funny again soon. Hey, you know what, that Twitter thing was pretty good, the senior discount (still smarting over that one), the OkCupid nonsense, jazz like that. It’s not all doom and gloom around here. I mean, you know, right?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From February 2015 -- After I found the place; packed up all my shit; dealt with the closing; dodged the passive-aggressive arrows being shot in my direction; got my place set up; moved in; moved The Gamer in. All of that almost on auto-pilot what’s next let’s do it don’t think just keep moving -- I think I was probably hypomanic, and I think that was a good thing. GET SHIT DONE. You know? Crisis mode. Except you can’t be in crisis mode all the time. You have to ease up at some point. I think that might be where all the sadness is coming from these days. Summer doldrums. Time to reflect. Can be a double-edged sword, you know?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My back is aching in a new place. Between my shoulder blades, just below my neck. It feels like hardened concrete. Like it was fluid and overnight, it turned to stone. It also feels warm and sore, like sunburn, although it’s February -- I haven’t been out in the sun. Am I sitting funny at work? It's not like I pulled something. I recognize that feeling. This is as though I have sent some emotional pain to that place and now it's just radiating outward. My hip joints ache, and if I sit too long, I'm stiff when I start to move around again. I wince and limp out of bed in the morning. My carpal tunnel is back -- my wrists alternate aching and numbness. I got the wrist splints out again but I forget and fall asleep before I put them on and the pain wakes me up in the middle of the night. Like there’s a string inside my arm that has been cut too short.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My body is trying to tell me something. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I find myself swaying when I'm standing still, like I used to do when the babies were little, to soothe them. If we had to wait in line at the supermarket, for example. Just now, I reached back to touch my back between my shoulders, under my neck, where it's so tender and sore. I started swaying and gently massaging my own back where I could reach, and out of nowhere, the tears came. I carry all that fear and stress and anger and sadness around on my back like a big stick with a bucket tied on each end. And I just stood and swayed and rubbed my own back and cried, silently, just taking deep breaths and letting them out, shuddering quietly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am a mess. And I’m going to soothe myself and help myself heal and put this mess back together. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See? Done. 500 words can kiss my ass. Let’s go to the movies. Thanks!</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-18482671520562054922015-06-12T23:17:00.000-07:002015-06-12T23:17:53.897-07:00500 Words, Day 24 -- Much a To-Do About a List<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Things to do today that maybe could double as blog posts:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Pay PreMed’s tuition for Summer Sessions 1 and 2. This is a blog and a half right here. PreMed and her tuition and the goals those classes will advance -- the convoluted nature of having two daughters so close in age yet so far apart in temperament, worldview, and life goals, it’s as though they were raised by different people. And in a way, they were. Troubled gravitated toward her dad, fun-loving and indulgent; PreMed was pulled in another direction, maybe not towards me exactly, but towards choices that I could support. The way it has ended up, Dad gives Troubled $1,000 per month for living expenses. He wanted me to split that with him, but I refused to even partially subsidize an indolent life of part time work, no school and nothing to show for it. Instead, I chose to give PreMed $1,000 per month for her living expenses and get loans for tuition and put the rest on credit cards with zero interest on balance transfers and keep transferring the balance to a new card to keep that tuition flowing. A double-major in Biology and International Relations. On her way to a Master’s in Public Health. That kid is going to save the world someday and I will be able to say I helped make it happen. Next.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Call one of my two IRL friends</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Call the other one too</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmlCvZirYPKEVqmQ_zJbFdUVP8X3eWGKWc4ZeXgR-F8JptHOVJgRQuQZ3qVioPZDjdjrIYnPtuRuoeIkwdu9y9lIhysJxw4cQzJjuh5dm0YhD3LIwV9OX50eBwPxlKosE86HJIEy7Nv0/s1600/15040_512058635522626_2099777720_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtmlCvZirYPKEVqmQ_zJbFdUVP8X3eWGKWc4ZeXgR-F8JptHOVJgRQuQZ3qVioPZDjdjrIYnPtuRuoeIkwdu9y9lIhysJxw4cQzJjuh5dm0YhD3LIwV9OX50eBwPxlKosE86HJIEy7Nv0/s320/15040_512058635522626_2099777720_n.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was this close to actually doing this today, but the thought of talking to anyone about what’s happening with me these days make my throat close which makes it hard to swallow, and I can’t really talk when I’m crying anyway. Which is why I prefer to write. Next.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Curl up under bed and practice fetal position--I’m pretty much a champion at this already. I’m not going to practice so that I can give you guys a chance to catch up, skill-level-wise. You’re welcome. Next.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Exercise--yes. I will. I have to get past the 2nd quarter estimate deadline on Monday but then I promise, back to the pool. I can cry underwater and no one knows. Well, they probably do actually but fuck em. Next.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Laundry -- my favorite of the household chores and I am not being sarcastic. Even though I don’t have laundry in my place anymore. The laundry room at my little string of garden apartments is not far, maybe fifty yards down the row. The periodic breaks to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer punctuate the day very nicely. Thirty minutes is an episode of Girls or a half an episode of West Wing or time to get a meatloaf and roast potatoes in the oven for Sunday dinner. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sit quietly and look back at the past month or so and realize that all signs point to depression.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Not like oh I had a bad day 26 days in a row or even because there’s sad stuff happening. But overall there’s good stuff happening, and the fact that I get teary way more often than usual even for me is telling me that this time it’s my whack neurochemistry. You can offer me all kinds of advice and ta very much because I know it comes from a good place, but I’ve been rocking this gig for longer than some of you have been alive. So believe me when I say I got this. Sometimes you have to feel it, let it wash over you, accept that it’s happening, don’t beat yourself up, but pay attention. Work with it and maybe go see your shrink or therapist and say, it’s really bad right now and I just want you to know. Maybe we should adjust the meds but I dislike doing that because when I start to feel better I never know if it’s the meds or me pulling myself up on my own which let’s face it would be the better answer in that particular scenario. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Next. </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-60301267903983073732015-06-11T23:01:00.000-07:002015-06-11T23:01:49.503-07:00500 Words, Day 23 -- The Twitter<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 17.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’m taking another stab at The Twitter. (Follow me! @KlonnieChron! Well, no, there’s no exclamation point, it’s just @KlonnieChron with no punctuation or anything. A Twitter handle, that’s what it’s called right? Username? I don’t even know.) Anyway, Twitter is even more like high school than Facebook, if that’s possible. Facebook is the cafeteria, but Twitter is the hallway, where people sidle insidiously up and down the halls, muttering to those who pass. Some random sumpin sumpin, some little quip, something pithy and relatable. But make it quick. You only get 140 characters. You either repeat what you heard verbatim and get a pat on the head, or embellish it, or mock it, or simply outright steal it for your own. I don’t know what happens then. Probably you get chased into the bathroom and they blow smoke in your face or something. #jerks </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ab3b84fa-e64b-caba-ae34-0dee8c4031b2" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 17.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t understand how to control my Twitter feed. I don’t know how I ended up following 600 people. I must have gone on a Following Rampage in some kind of fugue state at some point. Like in Monopoly when I was a kid. Land on it, buy it. What is this, Baltic Avenue? I’ll buy it. Same thing with Twitter. Neil Patrick Harris? Fuck and yes. Boom, following. What do you mean, it’s not really Neil Patrick Harris? That’s his photo. RIGHT THERE. #what </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 17.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But even weirder is 900 people follow me. How did THAT happen? It’s like finding mysterious bruises after Girls’ Night Out. Hmmm. Here’s a clue -- for a while I had my Facebook page set up to Tweet whatever I posted on the page. If the post was longer than 140 characters (um, hello, do you, like, know me at all?), there would be a link to the page to continue. I wasn’t even paying attention to Twitter but I figured if I’m going to be shouting nonsense to strangers, I should make sure to shout it on every possible stage. #narcissist </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 17.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s another thing about Twitter. It’s like double dutch jump rope where you have to wait and watch for the perfect time to jump in but don’t wait too long or you’ll lose the moment, you know? If you miss your window, you’ll end up feeling the way you do when people are shout-talking to one another to be heard over really loud music that ends abruptly and so they’re just shouting into silence which is AWK-ward. A friend told me. And that really IS like high school and the rest of life, because with the spoken word and to some extent the written word, timing is basically everything. #trustmeiknowthings </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 17.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the bitch of it is, there’s no “edit” in Twitter. It’s “tweet or delete,” my friends, and if that isn’t some buzzkilling anxiety provocation right there, then I don’t know what. I already tweeted something kind of brill, but there’s a typo in it and I can’t decide whether to delete and start over or let it stand. It’s probably going to keep me up very late tonight agonizing over it. #surprise People have “favorited” this tweet already, so how are they going to feel if I delete it? I guess I don’t like that “favorite-ing” nonsense, anyway. I mean, I like it but it’s not my favorite, yanno? #hyperbole </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 17.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This shit is hard. #500WordsADay @KaleAndCigarettes which isn’t a Twitter handle username thingy so IDK what will happen if you try to search it. But @KlonnieChron though. #yeah </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMyxbjHH0oK9JZWMhxnzHdGCRYOg49A5xBtqjfXWxRWIsEkgzDMo8tfBKiJGaLkb8wCjjH320AMGyEZDsbfrEUjRyl9BIAgMLSnobLWYJkVdVuEqyYEVHu0IpIL3vc6Mi2GDVzQFxN2YY/s1600/tweet+142+characters.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMyxbjHH0oK9JZWMhxnzHdGCRYOg49A5xBtqjfXWxRWIsEkgzDMo8tfBKiJGaLkb8wCjjH320AMGyEZDsbfrEUjRyl9BIAgMLSnobLWYJkVdVuEqyYEVHu0IpIL3vc6Mi2GDVzQFxN2YY/s320/tweet+142+characters.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>#sonofa . . .<br /><br /><br /></i></span></td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-3613403925607149042015-06-10T23:59:00.002-07:002015-06-10T23:59:46.212-07:00500 Words, Day 22 - Hashtag Heaven<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The bad news: Anne Lamott fucked up today. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The good news: I have rediscovered Twitter. Again. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The bad news: I’m out of popcorn. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The good news: I’m on Atkins so no carbs. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-304f6567-e169-e9dd-2523-8c74921c0f10" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My love for and obsession with social media is ironic. I saw the Anne Lamott debacle unfolding and my thought was, “Oh good, 500 words will write themselves tonight.” It’s like a snow day for blogging.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does it really matter what the flap is about? I mean, in the grander scheme of things (a colleague in this experiment says “How meta” which is my new favorite phrase and which I’m going to suck the life out of from overuse), the reason I’m interested in it is because sociology. Also voyeurism. Also schadenfreude. Anne Lamott is a writer who has many followers because she is inspiring. She writes in a way that produces pithy, relatable, encouraging quotes. Today she tweeted the following:</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Is it okay to be a tiny tiny bit tired of Caitlyn? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, was very brave but so far he's gone from man to mannequin, instead of man to woman.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As several people I only know from social media said, “Oh dear.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I see </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: line-through; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shit like this go down</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> events like this occur, my first reaction is to observe and analyze. This kind of detachment is the result of many years of academic paper-writing, when ten pages on, say, the use of metaphor in the expression of abstract concepts, was due by 5 p.m. the following afternoon. Everything is a potential thesis sentence, something to see as yet another example of a simple human truth, the stunning brilliance of which doesn’t crystallize until 2 a.m. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If I were still in academia, I would write a paper on the phenomenon of social media, how its mercurial nature facilitates the human tendency to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still only 381 words. 385. Three hundred and eighty-nine. (See what I did there?) And that’s including the footnote about PreMed that made sense at the time, but I struck the lead-in that would have made it even remotely relevant, so now it’s just hanging around down there like an old man’s scrotum, and now that simile has me running over with silent, adolescent giggles.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s 11:55. I will close this now, as though it’s important to post it on the day in question. Well it is to me, actually. It really bothered me that I couldn’t post yesterday’s until I finished it this morning. Even though it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. This one, not so much. 11:56. I’d better get a move on.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Footnote time!)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.6px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">1</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 9.6px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My middle child, a daughter, known to the Nutjobs as “PreMed,” is the wisest, kindest, most loyal, staunchest defender, keenest bullshit detector I know. An old soul of the first water, my spirit animal if you will, who taught me the phrase “ride or die” by saying that I was hers.</span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-63165914951638097082015-06-10T06:47:00.000-07:002015-06-10T06:47:48.363-07:00500 Words, Day 21 - Kitchen Work<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Crashing wave of fatigue. Good thing it’s time to get in bed, anyway. She yearns for her bed, almost as soon as she gets home, she wants to set the groceries down and climb under the covers. Just cook this chicken, this rice, then you can go lie down. Just put the clean dishes away. Just cut up this fruit for snacks tomorrow. She consoles herself. Then you can go lie down. Then you can curl up with a season of something. Just write this piece. Then you can.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As she moves around the kitchen, she feels the inevitable tears welling, and she stops to consider this, to pay attention. What is happening right now that is prompting this sad, familiar overwhelm? Everything in general, nothing in particular. But no, stand still, notice. What is this really about, this time? </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As she moves around the kitchen, she stops occasionally to take a deep breath. There is something keeping her from fully expanding her lungs, she stops short of a complete inhale. It’s like the breath is stuck. The almost frustrated sigh that escapes her is what’s triggering this wave of sadness. It’s a sound that she grew up with, a sound that shades her memories of her mother, who moved around the kitchen after work, trying to breathe, and sighing instead. It wasn’t disappointment or irritation or a passive-aggressive request for help, she had always thought. She realizes this now as that same sound escapes her lips, and she steeps in the feeling that provoked it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“Just like your mother, just like your sister, destroying what makes you happy, and ending up alone.” Her husband’s voice intones in her mind, confirming what she already suspected, that the her family history and the patterns of dysfunction inform her decisions like DNA, dictate her choices. Her life is merely a vehicle for perpetuating the misery that infuses her emotional genes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">She nods ruefully to herself, yep, he’s right you know. Ending a marriage, moving out on her own, single lady at 52. The last kid will graduate high school, move out, and she’ll be alone. “Just like your mother, just like your sister, you’ll be all alone, and wish you hadn’t pushed everyone away.” He knows exactly what to say to completely wreck her. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">She tries to shake it off. It was the right thing to do, leaving, starting over. That’s what going over those old blogs is for. Reminding herself that she’s not crazy, this disaster is not her fault. Some very sick and painful stuff happened because of NOT HER, and this was the only healthy response. As her therapist keeps reminding her, being the polaris in that constellation for twenty years was the sickness, propping everyone up and smoothing everything over for a generation, that was the madness, that was the crazy thing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">But standing at the kitchen sink rinsing dishes and hearing her mother’s sigh whistle through her mind, looking at a solitary life so parallel to those that came before her, it’s hard to remember. She dries her hands on a dishtowel and heads to bed. </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-17292586744758091622015-06-08T23:27:00.000-07:002015-06-08T23:39:25.184-07:00500 Words, Day 20 -- The List<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With 1:16 to go, I guess I should get started on my essay for today, huh. It should be obvious that weekdays are my most difficult days for the experiment. I do have huge blocks of time at work where, if I were a different sort of person, I’d fritter away on my blog and other internet interactions. </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-bb22f971-d6fa-5a64-0a59-b312c4e0942e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it is, I take Facebook breaks often, to tend to my page and see what my imaginary friends are up to. We work in The Cloud in my office, and frequently the software can take a minute or even two to load, which is a decent interval for checking social media, as well as my phone, in case the notifications I have set have somehow reset themselves and I missed an all-important text. It could happen. But all too often, my lock screen looks like this:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWpzrsAx4P13dzVzGhtT7p3PhAfLc7nT8ri7Fk_4EnbJUAM7yP36T6vyrf4-vQCfv3f5Mkt0LKmldrpBsUmOOPZstNWqDsY2W0kbxFOqex0CfiDup-fWlfj8WJ2Vck0vVJVp_pOHTEt3M/s1600/11231848_813320912097045_6627292871099781826_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWpzrsAx4P13dzVzGhtT7p3PhAfLc7nT8ri7Fk_4EnbJUAM7yP36T6vyrf4-vQCfv3f5Mkt0LKmldrpBsUmOOPZstNWqDsY2W0kbxFOqex0CfiDup-fWlfj8WJ2Vck0vVJVp_pOHTEt3M/s320/11231848_813320912097045_6627292871099781826_n.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which means no one loves me, not even the New York Times. How many people can say that? You might ask, “Why don’t you set Facebook to notifications? Then you’re sure to have something on your lock screen every time you open it.” But that’s too easy. That wouldn’t count. As you might have come to expect with me, it’s complicated. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So to put 500 words together, I’m going to type up the notes I made this evening at the conference The Gamer and I had with the director of the tutoring center, to create a summer schedule to get ahead of the game in AP Physics and AP Calculus, as well as a host of other chores as will follow in the lines below. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a meeting that I had scheduled, and it was not to include The Gamer’s dad, my ex, primarily because I want to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: line-through; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shut him out of our son’s life</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> limit our son’s exposure to what I consider to be an unhealthy environment that will not be improved until I see my ex making progress on getting sober, and by that I mean ceasing to drink. Somehow he found out about the meeting and showed up. I staunchly ignored him, to my delight, the director did as well, knowing that what little influence he has on The Gamer’s academic progress is mostly that of good-natured and unintentional sabotage. In any case, what follows is the list of notes I took. Considering I’m well over the 500 words, I will let them speak for themselves, without translation or interpretation. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Find out can make up failed PE (local community college)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Run mile in 9:00</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eat healthy</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crunches rhythm anime subtitles</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finish online health</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Start calc and physics</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2 weeks or as needed check in</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Khan Academy online </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Catch up on Japanese convo</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get text for Japanese 2</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ID weakness vocab</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ANKI</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Free app android</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Go thru book ID words don't know</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Routine</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Accountable</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long term goals</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ACT prep</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MIT Lectures physics prof Lewin broad ideas</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Khan academy for prob sets</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EFT Check ins</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Therapist - (name of my therapist)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wrestling with motivation and follow thru</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Desire to complete v paralysis</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Self-soothe with entertainment; distraction</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 18.666666666666664px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pomodoro schedule</span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-85844577512850108562015-06-07T11:36:00.000-07:002015-06-07T11:36:29.246-07:00500 Words, Day 19 -- Dumbshows and Noise<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixIO5Jg9eW1i9Q-JKZ-ON7N38D_WnpDp1xcHgkG0teJHRh51UYoxgsQiGS-QrUb8kgTJF_ourfCP8Y94uoOn10YVQ2Fg1R4gi7Tgx48_o5zkKryhsMKNFclhDO4RgHdhaqvvOrafZ2i-o/s1600/whitney-scrapbook-014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixIO5Jg9eW1i9Q-JKZ-ON7N38D_WnpDp1xcHgkG0teJHRh51UYoxgsQiGS-QrUb8kgTJF_ourfCP8Y94uoOn10YVQ2Fg1R4gi7Tgx48_o5zkKryhsMKNFclhDO4RgHdhaqvvOrafZ2i-o/s320/whitney-scrapbook-014.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>F<span style="font-size: small;">acebook is the closest I will ever come to scrapbooking</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is there a way to download four years’ worth of FB posts? I don’t care about the photos I found and the links I shared. Status updates though --- some of them are hilarious if I do say so myself. And some of them are painful, pithy, and poignant, not to mention cheesily alliterative.*</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a while I was keeping tabs on those posts by copying them to a notepad on my desktop with the date. But then my hard drive crashed and I didn’t save them elsewhere and so now they’re gone. I keep saying I’m going to go through them from the beginning (July 27, 2011 -- save the date for the 4th birthday jam) and copy and paste. But Facebook is an asshole (surprise) and doesn’t always show you everything from the past. You have to keep telling it “show all posts” because the default is “highlights” and even then it’s pretty hit and miss. (Hey, is it “hit OR miss” or “hit AND miss?” Hang on, let me google it. Huh. Turns out either is correct. Fantastic. I need that kind of uncertainty in my life.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">One reason I want to be able to pull up some oldies but goodies is that I can use them for prompts when I’m out of ideas. After all, that’s why I post them in the first place, so I won’t forget. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Random hilarity around my house lately --</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Don’t let him hit ya where the good lord split ya.” -- First time the Gamer had ever heard that expression and now he is rolling on the floor in non-ironic convulsive laughter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My kids drive me to drink. The good news is they always come back to pick me up at closing time.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Random mildly amusing observation from Fall 2012 --</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.656; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Filling up a shopping cart at Trader Joe's to take up to college when you visit your daughter: 75 dollars.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Laughing at yourself because your daughter lives closer to a Trader Joe's than you do: Priceless.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh hey btw there was a bitter and angry (and heartbroken) paragraph up there also, but I put it down here in a footnote so it wouldn’t interrupt the bright and breezy flow of this fluffy post. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.656; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the posts help mark the events of the past four years, when the chronology gets a little vague, like, when did Troubled and Juvie try make money selling poppy seed tea that they made in water bottles in the cul-de-sac? When did Mr. K. said it was romantic that they were running an extension cord out to the truck so they could watch movies on the laptop when they spent the night in the truck in the driveway after I banished them from the house? When did Mr. K. write me that deluded drunken denial-filled email describing a conversation he and Troubled had where they came to the conclusion that I had done a shitty job of mothering and wife-ing? I do try to let shit like this go because I'm never going to be happy reliving it all the damn time, but when I do, when I beat it back for a little while, Guilt and Blame and Shame come to call and those assholes will NOT take the hint. Then the next thing you know, there's that shiny imaginary revolver to suck on or the phantom Volvo station wagon to drive off a cliff. So, no, not letting it go. Anger is keeping me alive. Next.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-1009580303966176982015-06-06T11:20:00.001-07:002015-06-14T07:50:08.724-07:00500 Words, Day 18 -- Round and Round and Round We Spin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIKVlUh5-TBb_9h-Q2AdCAJSfW9jSTfHtG28tv7tY1SJT1MSc_m1HYMhcoLY6TVXN8LU41XUo_3Dny6LN8d0lox-cPiymz_LNSvh-9m3q5oa4fARfl-ALVqv5udIZVlV-FvI9KVAsP9Zk/s1600/rusty-cadillac-brian-mollenkopf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIKVlUh5-TBb_9h-Q2AdCAJSfW9jSTfHtG28tv7tY1SJT1MSc_m1HYMhcoLY6TVXN8LU41XUo_3Dny6LN8d0lox-cPiymz_LNSvh-9m3q5oa4fARfl-ALVqv5udIZVlV-FvI9KVAsP9Zk/s320/rusty-cadillac-brian-mollenkopf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She scrubs the inside of the microwave. Someone had heated a plate of spaghetti without covering it and now there is a corona of splattered sauce around the platen. Her sponge goes round and round inside the microwave. Her thoughts go round and round the inside of the problems she is trying to solve. They chase their tails like the puppy that her daughter brought home, unbidden, without permission, far too young to leave its mother. She has come to love that puppy, effortlessly and without rancor. Of course she would fall in love with it, another dervish in the chaos that her household has become.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She looks around what used to be her beautiful house. She has returned for the few days that her husband is traveling for work. Someone needs to be here for her son. Someone adult, a responsible party. Who will take charge of things. Who will call the police and tell them that there is a man living in a rusted-out Cadillac in her cul-de-sac, who has been forbidden to enter the house, but who comes in anyway, bidden by the daughter, to lie around doing bong hits all day when the rest of them are at work, at school. "Call us when you are home and you know that he is actually there," the dispatcher tells her when she calls from work. "We can't do anything unless he is there when you are. Even then it would be a stretch." But he is living in a car, she screams inside her head. He is living in a car in the nice cul-de-sac where she clings to the shreds of the middle-class lifestyle that she used to make fun of but now desperately defends.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She's a light sleeper, really light. At the moment she is trending toward the manic side of of the bipolar spectrum. Now it helps her stay vigilant for the squeaky door, the stealthy tread. One night, she woke to hear her daughter just a few feet away, rummaging in her desk, searching for a hidden set of forbidden car keys. A shouting match ensued, a scuffle. She ended up hurling herself to the floor with her back to the bedroom door, preventing egress. Her husband slept through it until the very end when he got up and drove her daughter where she had been stealing the keys to go.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That was the time she left for real. She had left twice before but had always come back by dark, like a child, her tail between her legs, mortified, penitent. She left three times and the third time she stayed gone. Friends had finally convinced her that her instincts were right. That despite all the condescension and head games, the gaslighting, the bewildering denial, despite all of that, she was really right and had been all along.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The situation was intolerable and bizarre beyond measure. It should have ended months ago. If he had listened to her, given her credence, if he hadn't dismissed her. If he hadn't taunted her with suggestions to visit her shrink and consider changing her meds, because "that's always something to try when you get like this." Now, the cold comfort of "I told you so" is too weak to describe the way she feels. She wanted to grab him by the ears and shake him. What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You. Why aren't you outraged by what is happening? Your daughter is bringing her feral, drug-dealing boyfriend home to sleep with him in your house. Do something! She mentally pounded him with her fists.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And he would tell her to do something herself, if she felt so strongly about it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So she did. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">She left.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She left him to clean up the filthy mess she had allowed him to make. And came back to clean it up when she saw that he would not.</span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-14182454633155539542015-06-05T23:56:00.001-07:002015-06-05T23:56:56.221-07:00500 Words, Day 17 - In Which I Start to Bore Myself<b id="docs-internal-guid-da9e4075-c7a2-1ca5-53d9-79b44a9a6955" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">That feeling when you want to go to bed but you know your kid is gonna need a ride home. He’s being a little inconsiderate, but I’m going to give him a pass because he turned in his final paper today, last day of sophomore year, huzzah! But the little shit is really vague about it, saying “call ya later mom.” So I have to stay awake until he calls to let me know at what point “later” becomes “now.”</span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That feeling when you toy with the idea of asking his dad to be on call for the call, so to speak. But you realize that (a) he’s probably already halfway in the bag and (2) that would be asking a favor, which you won’t allow yourself to do because martyr. And excuse me, but isn’t it the weekend and time for him to be the weekend dad he always was even when we were still married? And while we’re at it, why *isn’t* he taking The Gamer for weekends like he insisted he was going to? But I’m not about to facilitate that or even ask about it because again, I’m playing the superior card, and I’m simply refusing to comment on this very odd reluctance on his part to have time with his son. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m starting to bore myself with my agonizing over my ex. I need to let that shit go but I’m still mourning the loss of the family life we once had. It’s true that I exhausted myself trying to spread a cloak of normalcy around it even though in retrospect it was massively fucked up. It really is time begin to make a new life and all the other optimistic things I talk about when I have the energy. The truth be told, I’m a loner these days, having isolated myself from almost everyone I know. It’s too painful to have to stop and explain everything. It’s embarrassing to confess that I left my husband to flail about in the whirlpool of his own making, that I cut ties with my oldest because she hurt me beyond my ability to heal, at least for now. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m lonely, I guess, but being with people is exhausting. I mostly just hole up at home because the calm and quiet environment is surcease from decades of being on for other people, with a partner who gave zero fucks about what I needed to thrive and grow as a person and a mother and a wife. It wasn’t malicious, although at times I think it was purposeful since I always stood in the way of what he wanted to do. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-80649630705610631312015-06-04T23:49:00.000-07:002015-06-04T23:50:06.436-07:00500 Words, Day 16 Already? Ugh<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Crap! 500 Words due in 1:22. Time for some self-referential nonsense. Oh my 500 words are due oh okay let me try to use up a bunch talking about how I’m going to use up a bunch talking about . . . .</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ugh. My kingdom for a prompt. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I was just saying less than 24 hours ago how much I was enjoying the structure of the daily deadline. I woke up looking forward to writing. I think I would look a lot more forward to it if I didn't have to do all these other nonsensical things with my time. For example, I spent a very frustrating 2.5 hours this afternoon trying to get from point A to point B and back again in my car. There are a lot of people where I live who don’t want to be where they are and are trying to change that at all at once at 5 pm. It wasn’t a SigAlert or anything but damn. I know LA has bad traffic but I think the Bay Area is catching up in that regard. I suspect that my boss sent me on this errand at that particular time on purpose so that from now on I will appreciate staying at work later until the traffic subsides. Keep my butt in the chair an extra hour, yanno? He’s a sly fox, that one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Casting about for a topic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">How about my ex who is causing me no end of consternation at the moment. There are all these divorce details to take care of, most of which involve figuring out how much money to give me (hint: lots) so I get why he wouldn’t be returning those emails and I’m trying to tread lightly because you catch more blood from a stone with honey or whatever, if you see what I mean. In addition to being annoying, it’s expensive, because every time I have to contact him, it has to go through about three attorneys who all need two-tenths of an hour each just to turn on their damn computers apparently so it ends up costing a couple hundred bucks just to ask him, “So how’s about coughing up those documents I asked you for about nine other times buddy whaddya say?” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Another reason it’s troublesome is that he might really be struggling. I know he’s drinking at least some. It’s none of my business and not my problem except for the sticky wicket of The Gamer spending time at his place (or not spending time there which is what it’s looking like for now). Also and no melodrama for reals he might die so there goes my support which goes to show you what a heartless bitch I am. Ultimately what’s wrong with everything is basically me and how I make everyone miserable which is actually not that easy to refute at 11:25 pm when I’m sitting here in bed blinking back tears because I’m the girl that cries all the time, remember that one? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So anyway, this one didn’t turn out all that great, but tomorrow is another day, Scarlett, and that’s a good thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Namaste, bitches. We out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-71461409007656346252015-06-03T20:55:00.000-07:002015-06-03T20:55:48.325-07:00500 Words, Day 15 - In Soviet Russia . . . <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the course of doing this project, I have noticed a change in the way I think about writing. Now that I have this structure, this daily deadline, I’m taking my blog more seriously. I’m not just dropping in when I feel particularly creative, or when an event prompts some scribbling, or some dialogue takes place that is too good to pass up. Each day brings a deadline, and with the deadline comes adrenaline. Each day demands another 500 words. And each day I look around all the corners in search of some that will sound good if I string them together. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s like the old joke -- in Soviet Russia, words write YOU. Six characters in search of an author. 500 words in search of a blog post. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was in seventh grade, we had to put together an insect collection for science class. Each student was supposed to get out there and catch a lot of bugs, stick them onto cardboard with pins, and turn that mess in for a grade. I don’t know why I couldn’t get it together on this one. It’s not that I was that grossed-out by bugs, or that I revered life especially, or anything. I just couldn’t make it happen. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, the day it was due, I got up super early and headed out to the edge of the development where they had stopped work on the houses when the money ran out. (I swear my childhood was a series of movie cliches). There were undeveloped lots of milkweed and goldenrod, where the collectible insect population was said to be particularly dense. I don’t know what I was thinking would happen, but I knew I had to get out there so that I wouldn’t be lying when I got to class and said that I had tried. I ended up with exactly five of the required 25 insects. When I got back to the house, my mother was waiting for me with a panicked fury that subsided somewhat when she saw that I was safe. I went to school, and when it was time to turn in the science projects, I went up to the teacher and confessed that I hadn’t done the collection because I couldn’t find any bugs. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then I burst into tears. The teacher, who was pretty cool about the whole thing, told me that I could write a five-page paper about insects instead. Wait, what? No bugs and I get to write? Beautiful. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve been thinking about that day off and on for years, just a little vignette, just a little sumpin sumpin. I got a million of em. The point is that I wouldn’t have thought to write about it if I hadn’t been sitting here struggling to come up with something to write about. That’s the point. That writing when you’re inspired is awesome. But writing when you’re not inspired may end up being more awesome. Practicing starting fires instead of waiting for a bolt of lightning. A controlled burn versus a wildfire. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-82646161332639996152015-06-03T00:39:00.000-07:002015-06-03T06:50:10.118-07:00500 Words, Day 14 - Award Night BBQ<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0M2ZGQXOslq0tmWgw-sKSTKoyZLUd_MA2aZXlzpGLZG-qjZdym7MObDE1gY90IWUjhs8B9qSzFvEVYeoaHGskjEVDEeFQVfKcIBR2zCKQnu6Chy1ugghE7p2KbzqZYtbTccNYnBiO4o/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0M2ZGQXOslq0tmWgw-sKSTKoyZLUd_MA2aZXlzpGLZG-qjZdym7MObDE1gY90IWUjhs8B9qSzFvEVYeoaHGskjEVDEeFQVfKcIBR2zCKQnu6Chy1ugghE7p2KbzqZYtbTccNYnBiO4o/s200/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She pulls into the high school parking lot and texts her son, “Hi, I’m here.” There’s no response, as is often the case. They laugh about it sometimes. “Sorry I missed this," the reply arrives often days after it was needed. But it’s not funny right now. She dreads getting out of the car, making her way through an unfamiliar venue. Shielding her gaze from people she recognizes, but doesn’t know, and people she knows, but doesn’t recognize. She grasps her phone firmly, tries texting again. “Where are you?” Nothing. Feigning competence, she gets in line for the buffet of grilled food she has no intention of eating. Although she arrived late, she unwraps the veggie tray she bought from Safeway and puts it on the table, consolidating food from other plates to make room. She studies the presentation at the front of the courtyard, nodding approvingly and chuckling at the jokes the students are telling as they hand out the awards. Most Likely to Walk in Late to Class with a Starbucks Cup in Hand makes her smile, but then there are serious ones, too. Most Likely to Win a Webby, a Grammy, Most Improved Artist, Best Designer. Her son is in this art/music/video/design program; he will begin in the fall. She peers into the different rooms, one is a recording studio complete with a great mixer, how many tracks is that? The English classroom is full of books she knows she should be reading. She surreptitiously takes photos of each shelf to remind herself later.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s difficult to be here, and she congratulates herself. It’s important, and she made it, and so far she has stifled the urge to run back to the car and read until it’s time to go home. She takes perverse pride in showing up to these things. She didn’t mention it to her ex. If he can’t be bothered to subscribe to the e-newsletter that announces such things, that’s not her problem. Figure it out like everybody else. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was his day to drive to school but he forgot. She had forgotten as well, and she and her son made their way to school and work as they always did. He texted her around ten o’clock to ask if The Gamer had gotten to school. “I know it’s my day to take him . . .” and the ellipsis trails off, as vague as his resolve to make good on his promises. “Yes, I took him,” she texted back. “Sorry if you came by and we weren’t there.” His name in her phone is "Straight to Voicemail." </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She scowls to herself, but her irritation quickly passes. She’s really rocking this single mom gig, but let’s face it, even when she was married, she was a single parent, managing schedules, writing checks, making brownies. Taking care of business all by herself. Showing up to school events despite crippling social anxiety. Being there for her son, whom she finally locates on the floor of the Web Audio classroom, playing Cards Against Humanity with a half dozen of his friends. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Here you are,” she says, grinning. “I could have used you earlier.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: x-large; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Yeah, I know,” he says, with a matching grin. “Sorry I didn’t text you back.”</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4433738082974955694.post-37586867101839580772015-06-02T00:54:00.000-07:002015-06-02T01:20:54.426-07:00500 Words, Day 13. The Prompt <span id="docs-internal-guid-94164928-b341-2247-d59b-39faa380303e"></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-94164928-b341-2247-d59b-39faa380303e"><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For Day 13 of the #500WordsADay experiment via @KaleandCigarettes, we received a prompt: </span></span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-94164928-b341-2247-d59b-39faa380303e"><span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What would someone see if they looked through your window for 24 hours? </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I love this prompt because clearly I need encouragement to be more introspective and self-absorbed. (lol winkie) It reinforces the conspicuous feeling I have a lot of the time. Surveying my space, watching myself, wondering how I’m coming across. The phantom audience that is with me ALL THE FREAKING TIME. So, yeah, resonance achieved. </span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I<span style="font-size: small;">n the midnight hour</span></span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">At midnight, you’d see me getting a burst of inspiration to create something despite the hour, sitting up in bed, tapping away on Chromebook. In an hour or so, you’d see me succumb to sleep with the Chromebook still open and the lights still on. (How that device has survived being rolled on while still open umpteen times would make a good commercial.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course I must sleep at some point, but I don’t know what this would look like, although a private fear is that I’m a really weird sleeper and do all kinds of bizarre shenanigans like sit up and sing the national anthem with my hand over my heart or something in the night.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">At five or so, you’d see me wake briefly to close the device and turn off the light. You’d see me rummaging, panicked, under the covers or maybe under the pillow, for my phone, blinking blindly at the brightness of the screen, despite the fact that the room light was on until about three minutes ago. You’d see me swipe “snooze” for the first of many, many times.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">At six, you’d see me stumble to kitchen. Pour coffee, drink coffee. I don’t know whether waves of gratitude would be visible through a window, but there would be a moment for coffee pots with auto-brew, and another for the memory to set it up the night before. You’d see breakfast and showers and morning routines. A relaxed, pleasant energy between my son and me. No, really! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">At seven, you’d see me shut the door to my beautiful airy spacious neat apartment, my quiet peaceful space that creates harmony and fosters calm. Another gratitude moment. You’d see me open the garage door. Marvel at having a garage. With a car in it, even. A myriad of miracles before 7:30 a.m. in the got-damned morning.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Then there would be very little to observe for over ten hours.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Back home at six, what’s for dinner let’s get burritos how was your day okay is there homework yes did you do it yes did you really yes mom god. You’d see me standing lost in thought in the kitchen. You’d see me clear the dishes and open up the Chromebook and put my hands on the keys, weaving contentment and gratitude and relief with regret and sorrow and grief, the rhythm varying in speed and urgency, until it’s time to climb into my bed and start the whole process again.</span></span></div>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1