HELLO OUT THERE

Hello, fellow Hunkerdowners!

(I stole that greeting from @thelesliejordan because he is a delight and a beacon in the darkness these days. Also, it's apt.)

Hope you're doing well and staying far away from strangers who might breathe viruses on you!

How are we, you ask? Uh, everything's perfectly alright now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?

Yeah, we're doing fine. Watching a lot of TV, listening to the inexplicable booming noises that our town is known for that RS Arsenal swears isn't them, and eating way more than is necessary. Probably much like everyone else, except those people who have a handle on nutrition and exercise. I wish I was one of those people. My disordered eating always skews towards the too much, uncontrollable weight gain side, which is currently the case. But you already know that!

Anyways!

No, really, we're good. Nothing exciting going on at all. This is just a rather banal proof life check-in more than anything!

I had to make a mask so I could go into the grocery store the other day. As I mentioned before, I can't sew very well and I realized I needed the mask last minute, so I made it with hot glue and fabric, and unless you want to smell melted glue for an hour, I don't recommend that at all! I can tell you this: I do NOT like wearing the mask. It is made from two layers of tightly woven fabric, so not very breathing friendly. I spent the whole trip shopping trying not to rip it off my face, because I'm claustrophobic to a point where if my breathing is in any way impeded, I will panic. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but I literally had to keep myself from running outside just so I could take it off and breathe. Thankfully I managed to get the things I needed and get out in record time. Hehe, maybe I should always wear one in public to keep myself from impulse shopping!  If I can't breathe, I can't spend money, am I right?

Work has been work. I'm still going into church. It's not so bad, really, but some of the members are driving me mad. They don't mean to, I know, but I had one guy get obsessive about a tithe check that didn't clear. It was a mistake, obviously, but he wouldn't leave me alone about it. I was kind of a jerk to him, which I'm not proud of, but he was getting in touch with me at home, when I couldn't reasonably do anything about it. I kept telling him I'd check on it, but that wasn't good enough. I had to go to church outside of my working hours and find it for him. It had gotten misplaced is all. It wasn't stolen, it wasn't thrown away, it was just misplaced. Thank God I found it. I might have broken quarantine to drive to that's guys house and bitten him!

I did have one come apart, which I thankfully directed to Twitter instead of in person, which probably saved me some grief. Y'all know I hate when people don't answer my questions or avoid a topic of conversation by just not replying. It is, in my opinion, one of the most rude things a person can do. I get that sometimes, especially if a topic is sensitive or personal or whatever, it might be tempting to shut down, but even then, acknowledge that you would rather not answer if nothing else. Don't just stop communicating. Tell me to fuck off if nothing else, that's at least something, but don't leave me hanging, ya know?  I'm great at nonverbal cues, but when I can't look a person in the face, I need to be told stuff. To do that about something that isn't personal or sensitive makes it ten times worse, especially if we are having to rely on alternate forms of communicating where I'm literally waiting on a reply to move forward with something. Are we planning some kind of project together? I need you to tell me stuff. Do you not want to continue with said project? I need to know that. Do you want me to fuck off and leave you alone because you're tired of thinking about it?  Again, tell me to fuck off. I just want to know how to proceed.  This is compounded when it comes from someone you know isn't good at taking verbal hints, so you've learned to be very straightforward  and expect the same from them. If nothing else during this social distancing thing, I'm going to yank my hair out waiting for people to respond to me since I can't be in the same room with them. I found a quote that fits nicely here:

"When we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short term discomfort for long term dysfunction." ~some random person on the Internet

Bleh.

I've started actually working from home for my other job. Well, kind of. I can't really do much of use, so I've been tasked with researching social media strategies so we can revamp our image once things get back to normal. My boss also keeps asking me what I want to focus on while working for her so we can move my job in the direction that I want to go in. I really appreciate that she has my best interests at heart! I mean, I still don't know what I want to do, but I like that she wants me to find joy in the job. That's kind of rare.

Otherwise I'm still painting. Still taking care of my potato plant. Still hanging out with the cat.

Oooh! I also have discovered that I have a million cans of garbanzo beans and I have no idea why! I apparently buy them without thinking about it, and now we have a backlog. Does anyone have any good hummus recipes? I've got to thin the herd! Hehe.

Sorry if I spent most of this entry complaining. Literally, so little is going on that stuff like that feels like a big deal right now. I'm really hoping we get visited by aliens or something so I'll have something interesting to talk about!

So, be good to yourself! Get out when you can, and keep your mind in good shape! Check on your friends and loved ones. They probably need some human contact now and again. :)  Have a great day!