Two Wrongs Don't Make A Writer
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
Sad But True
Thursday, September 9, 2021
Thnks fr th Mmrs
Little break from the Epic Road Trip of 2021 to talk for a bit about memories.
Maybe not just memories, but also memory.
Me trying to find my keys on the daily. |
Memories are images and feelings recollected from your past.
Memory being your ability to store and remember those images and feelings.
(BTW, this is clearly no substitute for Webster's definition of these words, you should probably GTS if you want to know the difference instead of relying on my loose explanation here.)
Anyway, I got to thinking about both this morning at 3:30 AM when I was working on budget revisions and delinquency trackers while listening to Janis Joplin.
Bobby McGee came on, of course, and I started thinking about the 60's and Woodstock and Kent State and the Freedom Riders and Marilyn and burning bras and Nehru jackets and all the fun and fury that the people who lived through those days experienced.
I wish... |
I literally started crying.
I have always been obsessed with that era and wished that I had been born sometime between 1945 and 1950 so I could have lived through those days.
Anyway, it got me thinking about memory, memories, nostalgia, regret, and how we store and sort our experiences.
Pretty deep shit for 3:30 AM, but sleep deprivation does weird things to one's brain, no?
I am pretty sure I have spent more nights in hotels this year than I have in all of my previous years combined. Travelling for work is nowhere near as fun or exotic as I imagined when I was a little girl sitting at the top of Charlie, the cedar tree across the street that was my best tree friend, or prancing about in my manzanita fort draped in items purloined from my sister's closet as I pretended I was Alexis Carrington.
I find it kind of weird that, nearly every time I have woken up in a hotel room this year, the first thing that comes into my mind is FG. FG is someone I barely know. I mean, we used to have lots of funny, weird, slightly narky convos. There was a lot of laughing out loud - in person and in text - and a lot of inside jokes, but no real depth of knowledge about each other, and that was entirely intentional on my part.
If FG isn't the first thing that I think of, it's LD. And LD is like part of my own skin, so it makes sense that my thoughts would go to him first. Regardless, whichever one I first think about as I roll over and stretch and smell that clean, sterile hotel-room-sheet smell, the other one pops in rather quickly.
Which is odd because I have dozens of memories of LD, whereas FG is more of a memory than anything else, but I have hung out in a hotel room with FG twice as often as I have with LD. (BTW, for you moralists tsk-tsking at me - that ratio is 2:1, so stuff it.)
(PS - the exception here is when I am on an Epic Road Trip with C and D. THOSE mornings I would wake up, like, how am I even alive? where am I? who am I? why is there an industrial washing machine clanking and crashing behind my left eyeball? why are those bottles empty? am I going to make it home? is that piece of paper on the floor a Dear John letter from my liver, pancreas, or similar?)
Seriously, guys?? What. The. Fuck. I'm going to McDonald's |
ANYway, as I was mulling over my capricious memory, I realized that - never once - have I thought about MG when I woke up in a hotel room, even though MG and I used to meet up in hotel rooms on a sporadic basis over a period of years. Even more odd is the fact that I haven't thought about MG in months, even though I considered him one of my best buds for about a decade.
SIDE NOTE: I am sure some of you are calling the IRS and asking them to review my taxes and possibly emailing my relatives to let them know I am most likely a hooker or something, but I can assure you that is not the case. The fact is that, as a single mother who has, er, needs and has no intention of getting involved in a relationship, I won't ever bring a dude I plan on -erm- banging (sorry!!) into my child's space. Her home is just that - her home. It is sacrosanct to me to keep her space hers and to never put her in a position where my...extracurricular...activities cause her any discomfort or embarrassment in her space. So while you may be questioning my morals, or simply cringing, you can't deny that I have a point in this matter.
Okay, now that I got that out of the way, I need to explain that my rambling about hotels and memory in conjunction was because I woke up (alone, pinkie swear!) in a hotel this morning and it set off a spiral of ruminations on what we keep with us as we go through life and how it affects our days, our lives, and the days of our lives (haha, was watching FRIENDS while working at 3:30).
Happy Thanksgiving! |
Why do some people or events stick with us for days, weeks, months, years, and even decades and we have to reminded of other people, places and things that used to be so important to us because they fell off the plateau of our existence?
How can you talk to or work with or commute with someone every day for years and then one day realize you can't even remember exactly what they look like or why you found them so necessary?
How can you miss talking to someone you barely knew, but not mind one bit if you never again set eyes on someone you thought was your best friend for years?
Back on the FREINDS tip, I can remember where I was and who I was with the first time I saw any of the shows that roll in in constant rerun. It is a bizarre sensation sometimes, but other times I am grateful for the memories and glad my memory held onto that.
Speaking of memory...sometimes I think I either have early-onset Alzheimer's, or I am just a remarkable revisionist. My memory is like a sieve that has caught some of the most random things, and let other super-important things slip.
And memories... man, those will do you in every time, yeah?
Unless you can't remember them, that is.
I journal a lot (and blog, obvs), but sometimes I am surprised when I go revisit them. Like, THAT happened?? Oh, wait, yeah it totally happened and you stepped on glass on the way home and had to hop half a mile in a flip-flop until it broke and then you just made your BFF give you a piggyback ride home in spite of the fact you outweighed her by 20lbs.
So, like, the only people - besides the Russian bots - that read this thing are my friends - old and new - and random Insta dudes, so I can't imagine how this is going to go down with such a random demographic.
Imma close this out by saying that, if you are one of my friends and you are reading this, thanks for the memories. I am sure we had a lot of fun, and you can bet I cherish all of the fun we had.
If I remember it, that is.
Ya'll remember these? I want one and, like, 12 D batteries! |
Also...LD? Jealous. So, so jealous.
Monday, August 23, 2021
Eat It
Beignets were yum! |
French Toast Churros > Regular Churros all day long. |
This. Is. Everything. If you fed me one every day for the rest of my life, I would never ask the universe for anything again. |
This guy and his friends were very persistent! |
"Cheers!" |
We decided to head to Requiem Coffee, but they were closed, so we roamed Downtown Anaheim for a while until we saw Por Vida and thought OF COURSE WE NEED TACOS, I mean - who doesn't ever?
I love those people that are genetically incapable of eating cilantro! MORE FOR ME! |
Did you read the part about the smoked paprika Coca Cola glaze?? It was heaven! |
We wandered back to Requiem Coffee, considerably heavier than we were an hour before, but in spite of the fact that they had a Monokuma Waffle cone, none of us got anything.
Heeeeeeeyyyyyyyy, buddy! |
Saturday, August 7, 2021
San Diego Song
Day 4.
OMG….
WHY AM I AWAKE?
WHY DOES EVERYTHING HURT?
I am alive, apparently, because my back feels like a bag of QuickCrete that got left out in your Uncle Jim’s back yard for 3 years.
My head feels like there are a bunch of toddlers in there, letting loose in a bounce house.
My nasal cavity feels like the Holland Tunnel at rush hour – a sure sign I was snoring all night.
I would feel sorry for C except I can see
that she is still totally unconscious,
and I bet she was snoring just as loud as I was.
I am sure John Lennon meant the whole “girl with kaleidoscope eyes” thing as a compliment, but as I haul my butt nekkid (gross, sorry!) meat suit into a siting position I have to squint through the rainbow fractals clouding my vision to see that it is, apparently, morning.
We only like this view after taking mushrooms. If you see this after a near-miss at alcohol poisoning...NO.
UGH.
UUUUUGGGGHH.
Eventually C comes to life and we shuffle around the room
and get ready to human again.
D comes to get us and haul our pained, dehydrated, barely
animated selves to the Zeez.
It is too bright there.
Too many people – 4, actually – are awake, talking, breathing, and
apparently living their best lives.
I just want a blood transfusion and a back massage, but I
will settle for the bomb-ass breakfast bagels that a WAY too-chipper N fixes
for all of us.
What are we doing today?
WHY ARE WE EVEN DOING ANYTHING??
Oh, WAIT!
Today is Beach Day, so YAY!!
I could definitely use some Vitamin Sea. Actually, at this point, I could use any and
all vitamins, but being in the ocean is definitely the one thing that could make
Zombie Mary human again.
We pack snacks, sunscreen (well, C doesn’t), towels, etc.
and head out.
I lay my head against the window, sunglasses on, mask
discreetly placed so that, should I zone out and start drooling, there will be
no evidence to incriminate me.
We go on base, and then go to a store. UGH. I
don’t want to be in a store, I want to be in an ocean. It’s too bright out, people (by people, I
mean C and D and N and J) are talking too much, and I don’t want to walk or
talk or even pretend that I am a middle aged adult human and not the alcohol
recycling plant I have morphed into.
Sigh.
We buy a shit-ton of alcohol and snacks. WHY?
Why all the alcohol? Apparently
being on vacation means that my liver, which was previously used for detoxifying (although this doesn't apply to male humans) shit I put in my body, is now forced to step up and man the ship this week.
Poor Larry. (Larry is
my liver, BTW. I picture him as a hard-working
little guy, wearing a clip-on tie, one of those weird green eye-shade-thingies from the 50's, with
the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, frantically manning a wall of incomprehensible
dials and switches as he, manfully, struggles to keep me corporeal).
Anyway, we finally get to the beach, where we set up J’s
super duper cool shade thingie – not a pop-up, those are trash! – as soon as I
get the all-clear that I have done my part in setting up shade and chairs, I
sprint for the water.
I fucking love the ocean, you guys.
LOVE IT.
As soon as I hit the water, I am restored to being a functioning
human.
OMMGGGG...I need to be here always. |
I have spent the last 20 years in the PNW and will get into
that grey, frigid, biting water that is our stretch of the Pacific Ocean at the
drop of a hat. You literally cannot keep
me out of the water.
THIS ocean, though…
OMG, I am moving to San Diego as soon as I get home.
I think I spent 30 minutes just hopping and playing in the
waves with A. It was fucking glorious.
N and J came down to play with A, and I went back to kick it
with C and D in the shade.
The rest of the day was just heavenly.
D and N made a giant Happy Mother’s Day sign for us ladies
(HA!) in the sand, we chatted and plotted what our next few days were going to
be like.
Awwww...so cute! |
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
We left the beach, went to the store again (what? Why?) Because we did not get enough alcohol, apparently. D and J decided to stock up on enough Truly to last us until the next millennium because they could.
BTW, Truly is this toxic waste that is attempting to hop on the seltzer bandwagon. Even though it is vile demon juice. D and J cleared the store of their inventory. Which meant I was going to have to drink it...because VACATION!!
Truly gross. Truly intoxicating. Truly drank about 50 gallons worth in May. |
Larry hid behind my uterus, begging to not be
noticed by the alcohol.
C brazenly ignored the store’s commands and collapsed on an outdoor couch to relax.
Rebel with a major cause. |
We got back to the Zees and relaxed, made dinner, made
poppers, drank some alcohol (sigh), and went to bed.
I was going to try to cram Monday's shenanigan's in here, but our TikTok food adventure demands its very own day, so...
Anyway, this chipped seashell summed up our day quite well.
Friday, July 23, 2021
(More Bounce In) California
The lack of jeeps in this photo is not representative of our drive, but the gorgeous scenery deffs is! |
D before cautiously doing his swab. For whatever reason, I chose to clean my prefrontal lobe with mine. My eyes watered for an hour. |
I am sure all of the poor humans in that hotel would have rather met these 2 in the hall than C and me. |
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
California Dreamin
God, I love California.
People who hate California, i.e. PNW dwellers, are the dumbest people alive. I mean besides people that shoot off into the atmosphere in a giant dildo.
But, seriously, California is so beautiful and every time I go there I am, like, 'Screw you guys (PNW dwellers), I'm going home." If you didn't read that in Eric Cartman's voice, please go back and do it again. If you don't know who Eric Cartman is, please stop reading this and go do something else. Seriously.
ANYWAY, Day 1 of the Waxed and Vaxed road trip came to a close after a rather lovely, pastoral trip through the Central Valley of CA at sunset, and we arrived in Sacramento.
It was about an hour after dusk, the sun had set but was not
done casting some light into the sky, so our setting was still pretty fucking
fabulous.
I am a warrior, of course (translation; didn't want to look like a dork in front of my friends who know exactly how dorky I actually am), so I adjusted my mask, added Lysol
wipes to the arsenal of hand sanitizer in my purse, and set out into the warm
night with my friends.
We roamed around, dodging hobos and frat boys on those
rent-a-bike thingies, put our name in at the restaurant, and then wandered through
a groovy tunnel filled with art and discarded rent-a-bikes and then up an
escalator, only to see this:
Thanks, Jimbo, for showing up. |
Literally a jab from my buddy telling me, ‘Chill the f out
and enjoy your night with your friends or I will give you bad tacos and food
poisoning.”
So I did. We sat
down, ordered drinks, ordered food and I hanitizered (Harlowspeak for ‘hand
sanitizered’) everything around me. I
looked around at all the unmasked, unafraid humans eating out in an enclosed space
and thought, ‘I can do this. I am with
my friends and nothing bad is going to happen to me.” As my shoulders relaxed, I looked around more
and saw this:
Hi, cow! <3 |
Like, WHAAAAAT??
Clearly the universe was in my corner and had placed my spirit animal
and twin flame right behind me to watch over me as I ate and drank with my
friends.
(ISTG, if I ever get a tattoo, it is going to be cow-related! Cows are everything!)
After dinner we went to our room and passed tf out, and
while my roomies’ dueling snores did not keep me from sleep, they both went out
of their way to let me know I was the quietest snorer ever when we got up in the morning.
Um, WHAT?
Pssshhhh! I don’t even snore, so…
AND THEY WERE ASLEEP AND SNORING SO HOW WOULD THEY EVEN
KNOW?
We left our room, making sure to commandeer a luggage cart for all the shit we brought in for our one night stand with Sac-Town.
There is an actual picture of a human taking a shit in this post, but this isn't it..I was just tired. |
We wandered around the Downtown Commons, which was clean and gorgeous (City of Portland, you should probably be taking notes here) and full of plants and music, for a bit and then hit up Old Town where I found a stuffed raccoon and C took an extremely unflattering picture of me on the dock.
This is Chad the Raccoon, I did not buy him because his name was Chad and also because he can't sit on the couch and watch Game of Thrones and eat salami with me. |
After a fantastic lunch out in the sun, we decided to hit up
the Rose Garden at the Capitol on our way South, but there were too many gates
and no parking, so we got gas and I took a picture of a random dude taking a
shit in broad daylight next to a building and sent it to my child. BYE, Sac-Town!
This is that picture...sorry, not sorry. |
On our travels south, we stopped at Fields Family Winery in Acampo for a tasting, where D and I proceeded to annoy the shit out of C by talking about wines’ top notes and berry flavors and acidity the way annoying people do on TV. Also, she hates wine and there was no vodka so she talked a lot of trash while I got a buzz and then a splitting headache from the wine and sunshine combo.
D bought, like, ALL the wine at the end of our tour, and we
hopped back into Sisu to roll South again, until we got to our hotel.
Southern CA sunset, Seen from Sisu. |
I regret to inform you that no one saw fit to record what
happened next, but I can assure you it was funny as hell.
We get to our room, 2 queen beds, and I notice that the
window has a cushion in it, so I fling myself onto the window-bed-thingie and
announce I am sleeping there for the night.
I get up to jump on the beds and check for bedbugs, and D
proceeds to test the window cushion and declare it HIS space for the
night. He would not listen to any
arguments in favor of him sleeping in a bed like a normal human (which he is
soooooo not), and spent the night in the window sill. I still maintain to this day that, had I
clambered into the armoire and declared it comfortable, he would have slept in
there instead. Possibly upside down,
like a bat.
I was so tired and so full from the IN N OUT BURGERS that I
fell right asleep like a giant starfish in the middle of my queen bed and
neither heard the Dueling Chainsaws, nor my own – practically inaudible –
snores.
My God, I missed you! |
Tomorrow: Day 3. Or
The One Where We Counted Jeeps, Cruised With the Vatos, and C and I Drank an Entire
Bottle of Vodka and Lord Knows How Many (barf) Truly’s
Tuesday, July 20, 2021
Evermore
Those of you that know me know that I love Taylor Swift more than I love most humans.
Sooo...
Evermore.
Yeah, this song undid me the first time I heard it in November 2020.
Gray November
I've been down since July
Motion capture
Put me in a bad light
I spent all of 2020 being scared of dying, being scared of leaving my girls...just being scared.
And very down.
Yes, I look old and half dead. I was, so... |
The only thing that kept me sane was my weekly chats with my friends.
Ugly Sweater, Christmas, New Years...Random Saturday nights.
You guys kept me sane.
Okay, you also kept me ugly and fat -- haha!! Oh, wait, that was just me.
Those calls and our silly group chats kept me grounded. Reminded me that I was not totally alone in my inability to completely wrap my head around our 'new normal'. (ISTG, I loathe that phrase even though I catch myself using it all the time!)
Hey December
Guess I'm feeling unmoored
Except I wasn't exactly unmoored, because I had the best humans ever giving me a safe berth whenever I needed one.
Thank you guys for that.
Ugly Sweater 2020, starring my chins! |
I hope you get that, I hope you know how important you all were to me. I mean, you still are, obvs, but between trying to negotiate my own fear, work, Roo's (lord have mercy) "schooling" and her isolation, me missing the Twin Terrors and all the other littles....Ya'll saved me.
Getting my ass (and chins) kicked in the best way.
The 'Holiday Season" was absolutely saved by being able to connect with my friends in that way. My heart was saved a bit too, as well as the few vestiges of sanity (ha!) that I have been able to carry with me through the years.
In 2021, we stopped the calls, and them some friends moved away.
2nd to last or very last call with all of us. :(
Anyway, we planned a road trip to see those friends in 2021, the first non-family, non-kid, no obligation, all-for-fun friend trip I have had in my entire life,
I hung onto the thought of that trip through weeks -- through weeks of absolutely insane Tinder dates, through shitty work days, through all of it,
I could not wait.
Road Dawgs planning 'waxxed and vaxxed 2021' road trip! <3 |
Our trip started with some hitches, but once we were on the road, it was salami, nuts, me mooing at cows and shrieking at crows and tap-dancing in the back of Sisu - the best Jeep there ever was.
C and D and I sang, laughed, and talked our way through Washington, Oregon, and half of California.
Why, thank you! |
It was gorgeous. If I could have recorded us to save us for the rest of my life, I would have.
Instead, all I have are the memories of those hours of us laughing and trashing and car-dancing.
Glorious Mt. Shasta |
Plus, there was that amazing rest stop in Shasta where we stopped to smell the roses (there is literally a spot for you to do that there! - and let I had to take my shoes off and walk in the CA dirt and yank some pine needles out of trees just to have.
To be continued....
Spoiler - we had the most fun ever.
On Mill Plain, ready to head South!! |
To be certain we'll be tall again
2 things about this post:
Sad But True
So, I’ve been reading Stephen King’s 11/23/63 novel the last few days, and I cannot help feeling personally attacked tonight by it. The book...
-
The Person You Like and Why You Like Them Seriously, 30 Day Ultimate Blog Challenge ? What am I, fourteen? I am assuming this topic ...
-
What Kind of Person Attracts You? I totally just went through this. It sucked. Oh, this is TOO EASY!!!! Shortest. Bl...
-
"Weird things you do when you are alone." This one is kind of strange for me. I do lots of things when I am alone,...