I Hope You Dance

8/30 on Day 13.

YA'LL!!  I am lagging!

Anyway, most of us in the #500WordsADay group are not entirely sticking to it, so I feel justified.

I started this month writing about my precious Anna-Boo, and I am going to address her again in my re-entry to the fray.

She tagged me in a FB post about her son Nick's 18th birthday and totally unraveled my heart.

I was in the room with her when that little human - big human now! - came into the world.

She was my Assistant Manager, my best friend, and my favorite face or arm to lick in pictures when I was drunk in the clubs in Portland in the early oughts.

Being in the room with her when she gave birth was an awesome honor, a super scary prospect, and a really intense experience.

I won't traumatize you by going into the horror stories that my insane family told me about their own childbirths, but there was apparently a lot of cursing, yelling, and refusing of marvelous things like epidurals.

48+ hours of excruciating pain and taking it out on nurses and doctors, blah, blah, blah, GROSS.

Fucking kill me.

My Anna did none of those things. 

She was, like, this super zen Madonna (not the performer, look that shit up) and the whole process was amazing, primal, and absolutely something that I pledged to avoid at all costs moving forward.

SWOON

Like, the Dr. brought out this HUGE mirror so she could see what was happening with Nick as he came into the world.

Meanwhile, I was cringing next to her hip, looking at her face so as not to see what was going on below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Soooo, my friend had a baby.  

I mean, she already had 2 children - Sassy Kels and Sunny Devin - but I wasn't in the room when they were born.  

I loved those kiddos as much as I loved their mom and little "Nit", which was what Devin called him at first, but we always are drawn to babies, aren't we?

(Not my 2 daughters, which is why the day I spent today watching Eldest's dog was the same as spending a day with a grandchild - more on this tomorrow!)

Anyway, I loved that baby.

"And she loved a little boy very, very much..."

I loved hanging out and watching American Idol and eating the amazing dinners John cooked for us, holding my boy, listening to Kels and Devin ramble on and on in little-kid talk.

That all ended when my Anna-Banana took her 3 babies and fled to Oz, leaving me with a severely dysfunctional cat named Bob, and I never saw them again until Facebook became a thing.

Friendships are a blessing.  

Like, you meet someone, make them your person, and refuse to let them go. 

Other friendships go away.  Like, they no longer serve either of you so you let go and move on and barely remember how you became friends in the first place.

This is not me and my Ann.

She lives in Australia.

I live in Vancouver, Washington.

We don't have a lot of mutual friends.

I haven't been in the same room as her in YEARS.

Our lives our so different.

Our hearts are the same.

Ran into each other on NW 23rd on a Sunday.  NBD.

She sends me Tiktoks alllllllllll the time, because she knows exactly what is going to make me laugh my face right off my head.

I write blogs about her, declaring my endless love for her to the point I am sure when I finally fly to Oz (thoroughly anesthetized on Chardonnay and - hopefully - with Samantha letting me break her hands during takeoffs), Shane will deny me entrance to their Huntsman-infested house and I will end up sleeping in my rental car in the driveway, or a tent that John lets me put in his refurbished front yard.

I am so glad we are still friends.

We will be friends forever.

One of my favorite movies, two of my favorite actresses, three times we finna roll up on Melbourne like...

Even though her childbirth was not enough for me to NOT get knocked up and produce another human - something even Jeff (fuckface) Bezos doesn't have enough money for me to repeat - I think she is the bees knees.

The cat's pajamas.

The top.

The Coliseum.

(I would say the Louvre Museum, but I think I might be liable to pay some royalties if I did, so I will say she is the National Dinosaur Museum in Canberra, which I hope to visit with her.)

Anyway, I say all of this to say that there is a newly-minted adult in this world who has no idea that I used to hold him in my arms and wrap his tiny, trusting baby hand around my finger while I looked at him and loved him and wished him all of the good things.

Happy 18th Birthday, Nick (Nit), I am still wishing you all those good things from 17 hours away.

Cheers.

Shook

Shook.

It's a buzzword for being shaken up…very disturbed.

I have been through too much to get 'shook' easily.

However....

When someone you love has a medical crisis, it has a way of isolating your thoughts and rendering you 'shook'.

My parents had a medical crisis in the Summer of 2017, and I drove 10 hours down to CA as soon as I could, trying to manage it.

My older brother, who is friend, brother, and quasi-father-figure has a health-crisis that has me on Google constantly, trying to find ways to help.

If you read this blog on the regular, you know how Lexi and I lost Jimbo very suddenly in the Summer of 2016.  You probably have inferred that I inherited his nearest and dearest, and that helped Lexi and I navigate the treacherous waters of our loss in the days/weeks/months after it happened.

I have always known that H was Jim's soul brother.  He had a ton of friends, most more like family.  He loved H as a brother, though.

He sent my little sis to H when she was ready to buy her first car, and H took good care of her.

After his passing, H went far toward filling the gap of 'Big Daddy' to our group.

He is always there.  Responsible, full of advice, and always funny.

Now H is having his own health issues.

H dispenses wisdom, gives advice, and throws a blanket over any drunk that happens to crash on the couch after too much booze one New Year's Eve -- or maybe that's just me.

His wife, C, is our Earth Mama.  

She calls us out on our bullshit without being crass or offensive.

She gives out raw, take-no-prisoners truths when we try to hide behind our own bullshit.

I love them both so much.

Now that H is vulnerable and unwell, I have to give thanks for the fact that I even have them in my lives.

I have to give thanks that H is doing well and recovering as well as anyone can expect to be doing after his ordeal.  

I have to give thanks for my friends.

It’s got me ‘shook’ to know that someone that means so much to me is having such a hard time.

Get shook.

Wake up.

We are so fragile…humans, that is.

We take so much for granted in our daily lives – it’s crazy!

Every moment should be precious; Every. One.

One would think, after losing BD so precipitously, that I would be all about ‘seizing the day’, but sadly I get bogged down in the minutiae as often as I used to.

I suggested C and H ‘just breathe’ together post-surgery, but I haven’t taken that advice.

Life is short and precious, and days when you worry about your loved ones are long and difficult.

Breathe.

Just breathe.

And wait for the day you can sit down and eat terrible tacos with your friend so he can play pool on the good tables.

Happy Birthday!  Don't take it personally that your wife is looking like she wants to kiss me!!  ;)

This Is Why They Write So Many Songs About Friends

You know, I am kind of a shit.

Don't all disagree at once, people!!  :-D


Seriously, though, I get so wrapped up in my own stuff that sometimes I forget that I really should be be thanking the hell out of the Universe every single day for the amazing people in my life that I have been lucky enough to trick into thinking I am a nice human and not a walking dumpster fire.

I went to "Taco" (which is really TACO-LESS TUESDAY...don't ask!) this past Tuesday so I could hang out with some totally rad humans, and as I was driving home I thought, 'Man, those fuckers keep me sane and they don't even know it'.

My peeps..with a few missing!

And that's pretty sad.

I mean, they know I like them well enough to drag my ass out of the house 4X a year to meet up with them and trade insults and try to force shots on each other and make jokes about whoever isn't there, but....WAIT- I literally JUST realized those A*holes are probably slagging me off 48 Tuesdays out of the year.  SCREW THEM!


::::frantically Googling new blog topics:::::

Kidding!

Anyway, that thought process led me to go through my FB friends list and look at my friends and think about how rad they all are.  I feel pretty blessed at the eclectic, eccentric, crazy, funny, loving, fabulous people I have been fortunate enough to meet in my life.

And social media, even if it is a soul-sucking wasteland of gifs and snaps and tweets (WTF do those words even MEAN???), is pretty convenient for remaining close to the people I love that are so far away.

I love my humans so much, especially when the news manages to convince me that we are all vulgar trash and should discorporate and let some more honorable species (I say owls and elephants) take over the earth and undo all of the crap we screwed up.  When I get all sad and angry and eco-terroristy, there is a lot of comfort in seeing people's babies and pets and artwork and haircuts (BUT NEVER YOUR FUCKING PEDICURES, EVER, because there is a fetish page out there where someone may pay money to look at your - ew - feet, but my newsfeed is not that place!), it reminds me that there are good people out in the world doing good things,

Seriously, there are people that I have not seen in years, but I can rejoice with them when they get promoted, watch as they (attempt to - because kids suck) raise loving, thoughtful, productive humans, and buy homes and cars and brides over the internet.  Or maybe not that last one, CARL!!!

I started thinking about allllllll of the crazy songs there are about friends, and I guess I don't REALLY think about the lyrics when I listen (and sing along atrociously) to them, but if you do...MAN!!  All the feels.
I'm not going to list them or anything, but I did kind of YouTube a couple of 'friend' songs (for, like 6 hours), and I decided that my 2 favorites in the wholewideworld are Carol King's 'You've Got a Friend', and Randy Newman's 'You've Got A Friend In Me'........which probably makes me look like a crazy, but SERIOUSLY, go listen. 

Anyway, tangent aside, I am super grateful for all of my friends - near and far - and I am so lucky to have all of you in my life. (sob)  I'm actually getting emotional here, and since I value food over feelings, I am gonna have to dip out and grab a burrito, but before I bail, I want to tell you that one of my super duper awesome friends, Veronica, and I have decided to do a 30 day blog challenge in November--using prompts of course -- and are going to hold each other accountable for daily posting and publicly humiliate each other and trash each other on social media if one of us doesn't fulfill her daily responsibilities....

You should plan on reading along, because it's fun and also because I am about ready to start selling ad space on my blog and since it is only my friends that read this (and a shit-ton of Russians if my "stats" page is correct -- which, if it is, dobro pozhalovat, did you bring the vodka??) I know you all want me to get rich off of this blog because you love me and you know I will buy you all pool tables so we can go to Taco Tuesday somewhere that has decent damn tacos so I am not folding a chip around a mozzarella stick and calling it a 'culturally diverse taco'.
(There's probably some cultural appropriation in that last run-on sentence, but my white privilege prevents me from recognizing it, so my bad.)

Here is the link to Veronica's blog Grown Up Tantrums which is super hilarious and witty and rather salty as well!!  Just in case you want to follow us on this trip and publicly shame us on social media and stuff if we don't post EVERY DAMN DAY IN NOVEMBER!!

Also, I will find some new Ryan Gosling pics, like this one:

Okay, so it's not new but COME ON!!!  Look at those abs!!  <3