STILL ALIVE

Yep. Still here.

If you thought you could get rid of me that easily, you were wrong! HAHAHA! SUCK IT!

Hehehe, sorry. That is just my way of saying that as of this writing, I'm still here! Yay! If you're reading this, it means your still here too! I'm so glad!!!

Today I'm waiting for a meeting I'm having with my not-church boss to discuss not-church business. It's very exciting.

Currently, I can hear Steve doing one of his Very Important Meetings (the kind he'd usually go out of town for, but is doing remotely) through the wall. His business voice is very soporific. If I fall asleep and miss my own meeting, it will be his fault for not having vocal inflections.

So, what else is going on...

OH!  Ok, the last time I wrote I told you about the lawn man weed eating my potato plants! Turns out, they are ok! He cut off the big part of the plant, but it started sprouting again, so it's all good! I'm honestly surprised, but maybe the potato gods took pity on me or something!  Last week I posted a video about it on IG (and accidentally cross posted it to Facebook) and as it turns out, people thought I was crying in that video. I wasn't crying, I was mad! I went back and listened, and it did sound like I was crying. That's embarrassing. No wonder no one ever takes me seriously when I'm angry! This is why I throw things. Heehee!

I've gained an impressive amount of weight in just one month, which is fun. I blame emotional eating. That's pretty much how I deal with stress, which is not good, but I seem to have no control over it. Don't roll your eyes at me. If that's not how you deal, that sounds stupid, but it's how my brain is wired. Eating and sleeping to deal with stress is how my brain works. It's like being addicted to something. I hate it. If I had my druthers, I'd be one of those people who think "Hey, I'm going to go run 10 miles, or bike 50 miles, or lift 400 pounds! That sounds like fun!" but I'm not that person. One day I'll figure out how my body works so I can fix it, I hope. You know, that awful diet we did a couple of years ago was supposed to train me out of that kind of thing, but I genuinely think it only made things worse. It's easy to lose weight when you're systematically starving yourself (and let's be frank, that's what we were doing, albeit with medical supervision) but all it did was make my emotional food dependance worse once I was off of it. What a fucking waste of money and time. I'll just have to deal with the self loathing until I figure something out. Oh well, at least no one who might care has to look at me.

Tangentially related, we have been going on hikes about once a week since all of this started. I think I mentioned that before. I've really enjoyed it, except for last weeks trail. It was muddy and incredibly rocky, like we were walking down a dry riverbed. Halfway, my ankles were screaming at me. It was also mostly downhill, which sounds nice, but when you're trying not to fall on a bunch of smallish, but pointy, rocks, gravity is not your friend. It was easier walking back up that trail, if you can believe it. I like climbing on rocks, but not for an entire 4 or 5 miles.  We did get to see a big well that had been drilled in the mountain back in the day when people lived out there, so that was neat. We threw rocks in it! We plan on going to a much better maintained trail next time. It wasn't all bad, though! It was a beautiful walk. The trees were gorgeous and the wildflowers were blooming. There were streams and big, rocky bluffs. It's easy to forget out beautiful Alabama can be (even though a reminder is literally our state motto!) when you take it for granted, but I'm trying not to do that these days. With the development going on around here, you never know when the pretty stuff will get paved over!

Geez, this post sounds depressing and full of complaints! I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. I'm fine, really. I hope you are too!

PROOF OF LIFE

Just in case anyone is wondering, I'm still here.

My days consist of:

I. Work
    a. Church- Keeping the office going, paying bills, making videos.
    b. Cyber Security - Marketing Research and strategy

II.  Home
    a. TV - Been marathoning The Middle. It's delightful.
    b. Painting - Have slacked off lately, but need to get inspired because I miss it.
    c. Potato Plant* - Got weed whacked by a careless lawn maintenance guy.
    d. Cat - Napping with and petting.
    e. Eating - Too much and too often.
    f. Exercising - Not. I feel quite bad about this both mentally and physically. Considering spending
                           money on equipment because outside is full of pollen and migraines.
   g. Sleeping - Sometimes too much, sometimes not enough.

*I shouldn't be as upset about the stupid plant as I am. I recognize that, but y'all, it was my sanity project. I think we can all agree that things are weird right now, yeah? It started out as something kind of funny - I found an old potato, let's plant it and see what happens! - but it actually started growing! I was helping it live! I was weeding it and learning how to take care of it, and I figured that while everything else in the world was going to hell, I was keeping my stupid plant alive. It was a little thing, but it was MY thing.

I'm constantly worried about my friends and family right now. I lost my best friend three weeks ago, and everyday since I am afraid that someone else is going to get sick, or die of this awful virus, or something, and the world is going into an economic depression, and people are going hungry, and people are being awful to one another, and I have to wear a mask that restricts my breathing when I go out to buy bread, and our president is a crazy person. I can't even fucking HUG ANYONE!  So maybe my plant was just a way to focus on something that didn't seem scary.

But don't worry, otherwise I'm fine. The way I treat produce, I'm certain I'll lose another potato and it will sprout and I'll plant that one. In the meantime, I'll find something else to focus on.  It might be learning to give myself prison style tattoos, but I'll figure it out! Hehe

Hope you are doing well and staying safe! I hug you!

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!

IS THIS STILL GOING ON?

Hello out there!

I'd love to talk about anything but quarantine, I genuinely would, but that is kind of all that is going on right now.

OK, full disclosure, I'm not always stuck at home. Turns out, I am considered essential. Like, the state of Alabama says that church workers are essential, so I'm still going into church. We've suspended pretty much everything we do with a few exceptions, so I'm focused on making sure the bills are paid, the staff is paid, and that we can publish two video sermons a week.  It's all very exciting, I can assure you! Hehe. The pastor has even started letting us do some funny stuff for the videos.  Oooh, and we ordered a green screen so we could set up a makeshift studio-esque area in one of the unused rooms. That should be interesting! But I'm going between church and home and that's mostly it. We have gone to the grocery store when we run out of milk and bread. OH! I also get to go to the mailbox!

Not very different from my everyday life, now that I think of it! Haha!

I've been painting and reading a lot. My watercolor attempts are a mixture of sad and not bad, but it's still relaxing and fun.  Steve has discovered the John Prine musical catalog, so we've been listening to that, and he plays video games at night.

I have begin to miss other people! I mean, I'm not a social butterfly in the best of times, but we did talk to other, non-work people occasionally. I have been requesting proof-of-life from Anthony every week to make sure he's still sane. I can really see him embracing the hermit way of life, but maybe it's just because he has the beard for it.  I stopped by my mom's on the way back from Athens the other day. Do you know how weird it is for me to visit my mom and not hug her?  She would have risked it, but I'm not taking any chances. I like my mom a great deal and I'm not going to possibly kill her if I can help it.  That's my usual philosophy, really.

How are you handling social distancing? I've seen on Facebook and Twitter that some of the cool kids have get togethers on Zoom/Hangout programs with their friends. I think that's neat. I don't really know enough people who know each other for that. Boo. The closest I've gotten was when a cousin of mine accidentally butt dialed some people who were in a group text, so I got to talk to my uncle for a second before it was over. Butt dials are always funny, though! I'm still emailing and messaging when I can, though!

But hey, we're doing the best we can in a very weird situation, and hopefully we'll come out on the other side and resume our lives and get things back to normal soon! I hope you're treating yourself well!

I Hug You!

Last night I stayed up late to sew myself a plague mask to wear at my best friend's funeral.

(Let's all take a moment to focus on that sentence, which in a sane world, would either be the opening line of a bad Gothic novel, or part of an overwrought MySpace entry from an emo kid trying too hard to be dark.)

Ok, ok, so a plague mask really isn't what it is, but nonetheless, that is what I spent last night doing before I went to bed. I'd actually cleaned out my fabric stash a while ago, but I found something appropriate. Nothing with unicorns or Star Trek insignia on it, at least. I had to make it by hand, because for the life of me, I've never been able to figure out my sewing machine. It wasn't great, and probably wouldn't need to be used, oh, and I had to hot glue part of it together, but desperate times and all of that, ya know?

This morning, as I was getting dressed to go, I kept wondering to myself what Sara would think of all of this. I can almost see her making that scrunched up face she always made when she thought something was funny. I kept hoping what I picked to wear she would have liked. I think so, but with her you never could tell. We didn't have the same taste in clothes.

I didn't order any flowers, so I went out and cut some of the tulips that grow by the mailbox. Only three of them were nice enough to take, but I think she'd like them. They were bright and showy, kind of like her.

It took a long time to drive to the cemetery, because one of the main roads into Athens had been closed, but I finally figured out where I was from old, hazy memories of driving around there back in the day and found the place. There were maybe 12 people there, only two of us were her friends. Funerals are really for the living, after all, and her dad needed the support.

From beginning to end, the service lasted about 15 minutes, and no offense to her father or the pastor, but I'm not sure it was her style. Hehe. She wasn't religious at all, so I knew she would have rolled her eyes at the bible reading. The preacher didn't know her at all, so he kept stumbling over everything he said. She would have liked what her sister said, though, but everything else she would have shaken her head at. I don't mean that to be cruel in any way, but I knew her so well. All I could think of was her standing off to the side with her arms crossed saying "I can't believe she wore that! That guy got my name wrong! Holy shit! What is this?!" I almost cracked up at the thought and literally had to hide a smile.  That wouldn't have done under the circumstances.  She was cremated, so there was only one little hole in the ground for us to stand around. It didn't seem like enough, somehow.

My flowers were the only ones there.

I also ended up giving her sister my mask to use at her job. At least the work didn't go to waste.

I wish I was eloquent, and could write something beautiful about her in the way other people can. Friends on Facebook have been so eloquent and kind, and I wish more than anything she could have known they felt those things about her. I'm not good at words, though. If I could show you my soul, you'd know what I am feeling, but I can't. So I'll just say this:

She never wore appropriate shoes. Ever. She had a great sense of style, but never a practical sense of footwear. I could have invited her hiking, and she would have shown up in a pair of wedge heels and then complained about her feet the whole time.

She was the one who made me get my eyebrows waxed before my own wedding. She wouldn't let me get married looking like Frida Kahlo. She was also the only bridesmaid I had that took me out before I got married. She took me to a dive bar where they thought we were prostitutes and I wouldn't change that memory for anything.

She could be such a brat! On our trip to Florida, I was going back into the Air B&B to check to make sure we didn't forget anything and she yelled at me that she had already checked and we needed to go. We ended up leaving about $200 worth of wine behind because she didn't want to admit she hadn't checked everywhere.

She had only just figured out how to draw her eyebrows on so that they didn't look fake!

Several people have reached out to me to tell me they were sorry she had passed, and they have all said the same thing: They said she loved me. Having people love you is humbling, isn't it? No one has to love us, or even like us much, so when you know someone loves you it should change something in us. Make us better somehow. I think I am better for our friendship. I hope everyone has the kind of friends that love them and make them better.

I could sit here all day and tell you little bits about her and maybe one day I will, but I think I'll just simply say that she was my friend, and in that word there are a million stories.

I am going to miss her so much. I'm going to carry her in my heart always.

WHELP...

I jinxed myself. In one stroke, I became non-essential again!

I don’t know how I will ever get over it.

via GIPHY

😉

THIS IS NOTHING LIKE MY ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE NOVELS

How are you doing?  No, really, I mean it. How are you? Very well, I hope, in spite of the world going crazy these days.  I want you to be ok.

So, what have you been doing while stuck at home?

That's assuming you don't live in the south, because I don't think anyone feels like they need to be stuck at home down here. They have literally had to post police cars at the entrances to two of the parks near the church.  Of course, one of those parks is where drug dealers hang out and the other is where closeted gay men go to hook up out in nature, but along with them, the people who have kids that aren't in school right now who feel the need to still let them congregate in large groups (all while using the same dirty playground equipment) made the police a necessity.

I don't want to be too judgy, though, because I imagine people are going kind of stir crazy. You wouldn't think so, what with phones and tablets and backyards and all of that, but I think the idea that we shouldn't go out is worse than actually not going out, so people are being defiant. That won't be so great if they catch COVID-19, but hindsight will be our luxury by then.

I feel sorry for Steve, because he never stays home this much. Ever. When he is home, he's usually settled in, doing his thing, but during a normal week, he's either at work, or at band practice, or at some cyber security professional organization board meeting (he's on several boards) or traveling on business. It didn't occur to me how much he wasn't home until he was!

As for myself, I'm ok. I usually have quite a bit of time to myself, so it's been an adjustment!  I have gone outside more in the past couple of weeks during the spring than I have in years.  No idea why, except that I am appreciating the nice weather more than I ever have. Usually I have to avoid the spring because of my terrible allergies, but maybe I'm feeling the pressure of being cooped up as well. If I want to be inside, that's were I'll be. Now that I SHOULD be inside, well, I'm being a brat about it, allergies be damned! Hehe. I got two hammocks for my birthday that finally arrived a few days ago, and we have been laying out in them (weather permitting) as much as we can.
We've also done some trail walking, but I haven't decided if we're being stupid by doing that or not. We aren't hanging out with other people and we are distancing ourselves as much as possible, but it's impossible to avoid people all of the time. It's even worse if we tried to walk in our neighborhood, because the sidewalks are kind of crowded.

One of the things that sucks about all of this is having to plan the Just-In-Cases. Say, if I get this stuff, not much will change if I shuffle off the mortal coil, except that the next lady in line for my job (she's literally next in line, already decided on) will step in. Someone else will need to post funny memes on Facebook, and Steve and my mom will probably be sad. I did tell him to wait until I was completely gone before he found another wife or girlfriend, and she is, in no uncertain terms, not allowed to live in my house. If Steve gets it and goes, I'll have to sell the house and cars and get access to accounts and figure out insurance and figure out where to live and all kinds of fun things. This is the unfunny side of being a kept woman, I guess, but there we go. Now, if I could just get him to write stuff down so I'd know what to do...

As for other, less morbid, things, I am trying to learn about watercolor painting, which is a skill I'd like to have. I didn't study painting in college, although I wish I had, so I'm having to piece together information I've found online. I'm also borderline cheating, because I found sheets of watercolor paper with designs already applied in wax, so it's more like a coloring book than actually painting, but I think it will at least allow me to learn some techniques without being a huge waste of supplies in the end. After that, who knows? Maybe I'll be able to paint an actual picture of my own one day! I've also ordered a massive paint-by-numbers kit because I liked the image. I feel my art degree cringing at these elementary attempts at creating, but unless someone wants to hire me for a massive graphic design job, or buy me print shop equipment, I'll do what I can. I still have my beads and yarn as well, but I'm trying to learn some new stuff while I have the time. And I have the time right now, friends.

Speaking of friends, I've been trying to keep in contact with people as much as possible, but it isn't easy. I have weird anxiety about bothering people. I don't know why. So me reaching out to anyone without prompting takes a superhuman amount of effort. Some of the messages get answered, but some messages I send feel more like I'm putting them in bottles and throwing them in the ocean rather than typing a DM, but I completely understand that everyone has things going on right now and they are trying to figure out how to deal with work and life in captivity, but I have faith that one day I'll get replies. Haha!

I had to go to the grocery store a couple of days ago and it was just too damn weird. I stopped at Target after work (with my own baggy of Clorox wipes to clean the buggy myself, thank you) and it was like a scene out of some kind of post apocalyptic movie. There were people there, although we all gave each other wide berths when we walked by each other, and one was wearing a quite frightening black mask over most of her face. Others just looked kind of shell shocked. There were so many empty shelves, and I can't decide if people are still panic buying things, or if the supply chain still hasn't caught up. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for the things that were missing, but maybe I just don't understand the diets of people stuck at home. I mean, the ice cream was untouched, but the flour was almost completely gone. Weirdness. I'm so glad that we are still getting our meal subscription boxes once a week because it brings us fresh stuff, but I'm wondering if we shouldn't donate some of that to other people. We're more fortunate than others and it feels selfish to keep it all for us.

Apparently I am an essential worker at church. I am solely responsible for making sure that the church services keep on getting out to our members and it is a tiny bit stressful. It's probably shouldn't be, but people who aren't really involved in how we do things get ideas. We all know how welcome ideas can be when the people with the ideas don't know what they're talking about, but hey, we are trying to keep people happy, right?  It's funny that my iPhone has become an ad hoc studio. We record the sermons, the music, and I edit most of it directly on the phone. The only thing I can't do is add the opening graphics and things on it, so I have to bring it home and use my editing software to do that, then I have to move it to a thumb drive and take it back to church so we can made DVDs for our older members who don't use the internet. I accidentally lost one of the videos I had uploaded last week, which sent me into a weeping, panicked spiral of trying to figure out what to do, until I remembered I'd saved a copy somewhere else. I don't think I'm cut out for this kind of responsibility! But I'm getting it done, which is the important thing, and I think it will be a good bridge to build until our members are able to come back!  Want to know something hilarious? More people watch the videos than ever show up for church. Hehe! Maybe he'll want us to go full digital after this!

I'm trying not to let being essential go to my head, you know. ;) I don't think I've ever been essential before in my life!  Most of the time, I feel I'm like one of those NPC in games that just walk around in the background filling in space until someone talks to them. Then they come to life and do stuff!  How will I ever go back to being non-essential? It will be a challenge.

So that's me for now. I hope you stay sane and happy, whoever you are.

*rolls this up, stuffs it in a bottle, and throws it into the ocean* BLOOP!

SARA

Tonight I lost my best friend.

She died at 9:47, surrounded by strangers, in a hospital in Tennessee.

No one could be with her. The quarantine rules for hospitals didn't allow any visitors, not even her father.  She died from complications from an organ transplant she had 15 years ago.

We had been friends since the 7th grade.

She knew me better than anyone else alive. She was my secret keeper. She knew everything.

She was smart. She was a nurse. She was funny and mean and so soft hearted.

She was my best friend.

I thought there was more time.

I wanted to sit and write about her in the way she deserves to be remembered, but I can't think of the right things to say right now.  One day I hope I can do it.

...AND I FEEL FINE?

I wanted to come here and wax poetic, or to be more honest, be silly about the whole COVID-19, self distancing, world grinding to a halt thing. Being silly is my brand, after all, and there is a lot of silly about the whole mess, if you stop and think about it.

Having to learn to work from home with software most people have never heard of and the mishaps associated with that? Everything nonessential being closed and us having to figure out how to amuse ourselves without the normal distractions? Hoarding toilet paper? Being relegated to your house and maybe one or two other specific locations? I mean, it sounds like bad reality television!  HOUSE ARREST! This fall on NBC!

But right now I’m not feeling so silly. I hate when I don’t feel silly, you guys, because then I get THOUGHTS. Thoughts lead to seriousness, and seriousness leads to stress eating potato chips. 

Ya know, in some ways, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, the quarantine stuff. In fact, I think maybe society might have needed it. We all spend so much time making so much noise. Work this, work that, school stuff, we gotta be at church this many days a week, oooh, let’s go to the movies, or shop, or play sports, or violin lessons, or whatever keeps us from sitting still for too long. Maybe the human race needed a reason to step back a bit and rest from the usual distractions. A relatively misunderstood, rapidly infectious disease is a shitty catalyst for that, but it is what it is, and that seems to be the only thing that could get us to slow down like we have. Kind of a crappy deal, but here we are.

There are some very terrible things about all of this, of course. The sickness and people dying of COVID-19, the healthcare system being overwhelmed, the people who are going to lose their livelihoods, the business that will fail. Relationships that will be damaged, either from too much time together or not enough time together. The not being able to be with people when they need you.

Right now my best friend is in a hospital, alone, being operated on somewhere. Maybe Tennessee. We don’t know for certain how she is or what is happening because no one at the hospital can tell her father, who can’t be with her, WTF is going on. It’s not their fault, really, because of everything that’s happening, but that doesn’t make it easier on the people who care about her. She is not doing well, and I mean that in the sense you think I mean. That is just one of the things on my mind right now.

On a personal note, and I don’t really like to admit this, it’s also so damn lonely! I never realized just how much I distract myself from that feeling. I’ve spent the last two weeks checking on people and making sure that they have what they need, and reaching out to make dumb conversations to make sure people are ok, and making sure the church can have their services online, and that people are getting paid, and doing busy work at my other job so that I will have it to go back to when this is all over, posting funny stuff online to make people laugh and etc. Now that the initial scrabbling to get adjusted is over and things are more quiet, I’m starting to realize how isolated I am. That sounds crazy after all I talked about, but working with people doesn’t make you less alone in the most basic sense. Hell, even being married doesn’t make you less lonely sometimes. My cup is getting empty, you guys.

I think that when this is all over, a lot of personal things and feelings will have changed, and I do not look forward to it.

Anyway, that is where my brain is this morning. I told you I didn’t like being serious. Now I need some potato chips.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: ORLANDO, FLORIDA TO HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA, MARCH 14, 2020

I almost wet my pants.

We got up this morning and prepared to leave for the drive home, and in the haze of fatigue and pain (I swear, those damn pants rubbed a friggin hole in my leg!) I made a rookie mistake before we hit the road. I chugged an entire 16 oz bottle of water before we left the hotel room for the last time. We went to the shop in the lobby and I purchased a 16 oz bottle of protein stuff for breakfast (easier to handle in the car than food) and a 12 oz cup of iced coffee. I was finished with both before we had made it out of Orlando proper, and didn’t think anything of it until we had been driving for about 45 minutes and my body (as it does) reminded me that I can’t hold that amount of liquid forever.

Trouble was, see, was that we weren’t exactly in a place where relief was possible. The joys of driving on the interstate, no? Oh, and we hit a traffic slow down just about that time as well, so even if there had been an exit just up ahead, it wasn’t one we would have reached in a timely manner. So I persevered. It didn’t take long, however, until the situation became somewhat urgent. Steve accidentally missed the exit that would have provided relief, and then we hit a section of road under construction, and then there wasn't another exit for miles!

I don't know if you've ever had to turn calmly towards your spouse and say "You know, I'm probably, actually, going to wet my pants and I apologize that you'll have to see me like that." If not, you have not lived the humiliation I had to undergo at that moment.  Y'all, we drove, and drove, and droooooooooooooooooove, and I forced myself to exercise a level of control over myself that was, heretofore, only known to some subsets of Shaolin monks in the very highest and most isolated of mountain caves. I honestly began to weigh the pros and cons of jumping out of the car and trying to find sufficient coverage in the roadside brush, but thanks to the Lord, Steve's driving skills through clogged traffic, and the Florida DOT, we finally found a turn off and a restroom. Whew.

At this same stop, we managed to also find some locally made marmalade, oranges, horrible local souvenirs, AND an entire taxidermy alligator!  One stop shop, indeed!

After that, we went on our way, thankfully able to stop as the spirit, and our bladders, moved us.  We stopped at one Florida welcome center that warned us against venomous snakes!  There was another place called the Magnolia Plantation in Georgia that has very nice bathrooms and excellent peanut brittle. We got hit by a swarm of biting gnats at yet another Georgia rest area, and stopped at IKEA for lunch. Well, we actually stopped at IKEA to get something for Anthony, as a thank you for making sure the neighborhood stray cats didn't go hungry in my absence, but we ate in their cafeteria.

I actually like road trips, and this one (save the bathroom situation early on) was fairly smooth. Once we made it back to Alabama, we had to make a stop at a Wal-Mart to get bread so we'd have sandwiches once we got home. I was unprepared for the emptiness I was faced with once we got there, but apparently people don't like bread with seeds in it, so we did manage to get something to carry home. Yikes.

We made it home at about 9:00 PM, and Simba was very glad to see us. Apparently he thought he'd been abandoned, and needed about an hour of sitting directly on my body before he was convinced we were actually home.

It was a long, but very good trip, all things considered. I'm glad we're home, though, and I'm ready to sleep in my own bed.  Now, let's see what will happen from here!

Stay safe and healthy, you guys.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: ORLANDO, FLORIDA, MARCH 13, 2020

Ok, hear me out...

We went to Disney World today. It was one of the things that we’d planned to do, the tickets were bought, and it’s literally Steve’s favorite place on earth. That’s not an exaggeration. It holds a lot of sentimental value to him and the trip there meant a lot to him. I felt very weird about going, but I didn’t want to disappoint him. So we went.

I expected that it wouldn’t be crowded, because things have been getting hairy with COVID-19 since we left Huntsville last Sunday and people were being told to stay home. I’d hoped that, if it weren’t crowded, then we wouldn’t be in as much risk.  As it turns out, I was very, very wrong.

People won’t go to work. People won’t go to school. People won’t go to church, the grocery store (except to hoard toilet paper for some reason), or to the mall. But people will absolutely go to fuckin’ Disney World. They will go and take their kids, their tiny babies, their old grandmothers and pawpaws. It felt like the whole state of Florida was in those parks with us not giving one damn about anything else going in right now. It was crowded beyond anything I’ve ever seen when I've been there. It blew my mind. 

 

I’d like to think it was society bravely giving the finger to danger, but what it really is, is misplaced priorities and bad judgement. I include us in that statement.

I can’t really throw stones, since I was there too, but I genuinely thought more people would have better sense than to brings kinds and elderly people into the parks, but I give people too much credit.

Look, I enjoyed the day as much as I could. It was hot, crowded, and loud, but it was fun watching Steve have fun, and he (knowing DW is not at all my favorite place to be) wanted so badly for me to have fun with him that I did my best to oblige. We rode in the Millennium Falcon and had blue milk in Galaxy’s Edge, we went all around the world in Epcot, and we went into the miserably packed Magic Kingdom and only managed to get on one ride before we had to leave. I did begin to lose my sense of humor about being there around the time I got packed into a queue line with roughly a million other people to ride Pirates of the Caribbean, and that was the end of our day. I just couldn’t deal anymore. We made one last stop at a shop and then hopped a bus back to the car to drive out to our final hotel near the airport.  

I had fun, I truly did, and I am so glad Steve had fun, but I’m not going to lie: I felt like an asshole for going to that theme park. I knew I was exposing myself to a potential illness that I could pass on to someone else, and it seems so dumb in hindsight. Earlier in the week, I didn’t feel so much that way, but after being inundated with everything going on in social media, and people getting asked to stay home from, well, everything, and finding out even Disney would be closing next week, in the end, I really, genuinely felt like an asshole for the possibility of what could happen. I still do.

Ah well, nothing can be changed now. I’ll have to deal with the fallout if it happens. I don’t expect sympathy if it does. Maybe I really am just an asshole.

Two funny things happened: 1) Steve and I were riding the sky bucket/gondolas things from one park to another, and four other people got into our pod. Since we are in the South, of course pollen was super thick there. I have awful seasonal allergies, and had taken medicine to help, but I got a tickle in my throat while in that pod. I knew if I coughed, it would scare those folks, so I had to stifle it. Have you ever tried not to cough? It is impossible! I finally had to turn to the people (who were eyeing me quite warily by this point) and say “Sorry! Don’t be scared! I swear I’m just allergic to pine trees!” They laughed and seemed to relax, but I felt so bad!  2) Steve and I had lunch at the Rose & Crown restaurant, which is located in the UK part of EPCOT. (Aside: will they remove England from that part of EPCOT after Brexit?) It was hot, and we were pretty dehydrated by that point, but I ordered something called a Welsh Dragon, which was electric green and mildly (I thought) alcoholic. Apparently, being dehydrated and drinking booze is a bad mix. By the time we were done, and in the Canadian pavilion “Circlevision” show, I almost lost the ability to stand under my own power. Luckily, though, I got a hold of myself before face planting in the theater. Also, just FYI, being slightly (or more) tipsy makes Disney much more fun! Hehe!

 

One very not funny thing happened and it was possibly karmic in nature. I wore a pair of baggy linen pants to the park. During the course of the day, they got wet (as pants do in theme parks with water and such) and I don’t know if it was a problem with the inner seam, or because of the way they fit, or what, but they chafed my legs so badly that it drew blood! Oh, dear heavens, I’ve never had that kind of pain with walking in my life before! It was like walking with knives stabbing me right in the thigh! If you ever want to know about places your body rubs up against itself that you had no idea about, let me know and I’ll let you know where to get pants like that! Youch. 

 

Tomorrow we drive home. I'm going to miss being in Florida, but I think I"ll feel better not having to go out into crowds for a bit until all the craziness dies down.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: TAMPA, FLORIDA, MARCH 12, 2020

I decided that I was going to hang out at the Hotel today instead of driving anywhere on my own. It’s a combination of laziness, not wanting to drive in Tampa traffic (which is nuts), and not really knowing what I’d do once I was out there anyway. My main plan was to go to the beach, but since we went yesterday, and since I couldn’t really swim or have a place to clean up or anything, I’m cool not going. Plus, it means Steve will have the car instead of calling an Uber, so he can have a little more freedom while he’s at his conference. When I first decided not to go anywhere on my own, I felt like I was being cowardly, but after some internal searching, I realize I just want to be on my own today. I’m feeling hermity. Hehe.

I think it’s great that Steve got invited to speak at this event. He is considered a cyber security expert, so not only will he speak, he will be on a panel. I’m actually curious to see if many people will be there after all, though. 

I spent the day in the room watching Amazon Prime stuff, mainly. I did go to the vending machine at some point, but mostly just enjoyed myself in the room in various ways until Steve texted me with plans for when his conference would be over. 

The only thing of note that I did today was go have dinner at a swanky hotel restaurant with one of Steve’s coworkers and his wife, which was a lot of fun. It was the hotel where the New York Yankees and the Detroit Lions were staying during their spring training. Unfortunately, they had all gone by the time we got there because of their training being cancelled. BOO!!!! But we had some good food, fun conversation, and beautiful scenery anyways. 

 

Not a bad way to end the day! 

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: TAMPA, FLORIDA, MARCH 11, 2020

Today we didn’t know what we were going to do. Steve had to stop by a convention for a bit. He is due to speak and be on a panel discussion about Cybersecurity tomorrow, but he needed to meet with the lady who set up the conference to get some information. They have no way of knowing if people who signed up to be at the conference will actually come a5 this point, but the show must go on, I guess.

Since I’m going to be on my own for most of the day tomorrow, I asked Steve to go with me today after his obligations were fulfilled, so I’d know where the beaches are, in case I decide to drive out there myself while he was at his thing. I know that is what GPS is for, but I didn’t think it could hurt to have a dry run! 

We drove over Tampa Bay and into St. Petersburg. Well actually, we ended up in a place called Treasure Island, but I never found out if that was a town, or the name of a neighborhood. It was so cute! There were a lot of very well preserved, old hotels along the beach, maybe from the 50’s or 60’s? I dunno, but we drove around until we ended up in Madeira Beach, and Steve and I took a walk so I could find some seashells! That is one of my very favorite activities, so I was excited to do it. I found my firs pieces of urchin shell in the wild, and a few mostly whole pin shells!  We walked for about an hour and then drove around some more. We looked for cheesy beach shops to see what kind of awful souvenirs that were out this year, but surprisingly, we didn’t find much. I guess St. Pete must be a nicer sort of place? Eh, oh well.

Steve had a phone meeting to attend, so we came back to the hotel to get cleaned up, because after his meeting, we indeed went back to the Colombian Restaurant! We weren’t just going back for the food, but we were also went back to see the Flamenco show they have. It was so cool! It doesn’t look like a hard dance to learn, but I think that’s the trick. I know I’d never be able to do it! The dancers were very good, and we had a great time. The food was still excellent, although I ate way too much -but who can resist churros?-  and I’m very glad I was told about the place!

By the time we got back, again, we were so tired that we went straight to bed. However, we both woke up in the middle of the night. Not cool. Save the first day, this whole trip has been a series of being tired, and not being able to sleep well, which makes us tired, but doesn’t let us sleep well. It’s weird. It also doesn’t help that since I’ve been up, I’ve been inundated with panic posts/articles about the Coronavirus and now I feel guilty for not being home, hiding in my house. I’m stuck between wanting to be careful and wanting to live my damn life. Ugh. Well, we’ll be living our damn lives this week. People will probably think we’re a couple of assholes for that, I guess.

Sigh.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY ORLANDO TO TAMPA, FLORIDA, MARCH 10, 2020

Ok, first off, do not judge me. 

Colleges are stopping in person classes in favor of online work. Conferences, concerts, and other large group activities are being cancelled left and right. People are now being urged to work from home. We’ve had friends lose hundreds of dollars by simply not going to events that they’ve already paid for because there would be a crowd of people in one place. It’s kind of crazy, but an understandable kind of crazy, because right now, no one really knows the scope, incubation, and transmission rate of the Coronavirus. All of this makes sense to me. But guess what we did today?

Universal Studios. 

Shut. up.

Ok, hear me out... yeah, I really don’t know why we did this either, but damn the torpedoes, I guess.*shrug*

If it sounds weird that we took a day in the middle of a work trip to go to a theme park (during a budding pandemic, no less)  it all came down to timing. Originally, Steve was going to fly down here today, and so had no work planned. At the last minute, a meeting with a client got added On Monday, so we drove down on Sunday, and with that out of the way, we had Tuesday (Today) free. Get it? Got it? Good! 

You’d think that, with the afore mentioned pandemic, places like Universal Studios would be much less crowded. To be fair, maybe it was, but it didn’t look like it. We didn’t have to wait in extremely long lines, but there were still a lot of people there. I spent a great amount of time trying not to touch railings, handles, and surfaces, and I took the chance to wash my hands whenever I could, but let’s face it. I was at a theme park in Florida. If I don’t come home with Coronavirus, there is a good chance I got measles or second hand syphilis from someone we stood next to in line. I don’t know. Half of me is horrified that we went, and half of me knows you can’t live your life terrified of what ifs, and the other half of me (I’m a big woman, so yeah) is wondering if I’ll get sick and die myself, or accidentally kill someone with germs and knowing I’ll never forgive myself if it happens.

We actually had fun, all things considered. We rode the rides, we visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (my fave) and just enjoyed the day. The weather was amazing, the park had a Mardi Gras celebration going on, and we got to eat at an award winning theme park restaurant! Hehe, yes, that is what the sign said! My food (I ordered gnocchi bolognese) was not so great. It tasted EXACTLY, and I mean exactly, like canned ravioli. This leaves me with two unsettling possibilities: 1) We paid theme park food prices (stupid high) for canned Italian food in a fancy plate. Or 2) If a trained chef, or cook, or whatever, wins awards for making food like that, we have not been giving Chef Boyardee enough credit for his excellent food! 

I was completely exhausted by the time we were finished for the day, so we stopped by Voodoo Donuts for some sugar and caffeine, and then it the road for Tampa, where we will be for the next couple of days.

We finally got there (it seemed to take forever) and then took some excellent advice and had dinner at the Columbia Restaurant, which is the oldest restaurants in Florida. It is family owned and serves Spanish food. It was delish, and we already think we will go back tomorrow to try some other stuff and watch the Flamenco show! 

Now we’re back and I’m so tired and ready for bed! 

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: ORLANDO, FLORIDA, MARCH 9, 2020

Steve had to go to work this morning. I was awake while he got ready, and so he explained Uber to me since I’ve never used it, in case I wanted to go somewhere. We are basically across the street from UCF, and maybe some shops, but I couldn’t think of anywhere around here I wanted to go that couldn’t wait until he got back. Once he was gone, I Basically I spent a cozy, sleepy, even slightly hedonistic morning buried in puffy hotel blankets and fifty giant pillows. Like God intended.  

Ok, actually, my hedonism got a little out of hand. I fell asleep again until almost noon. I regret nothing. I finally made myself get up and shower, so I could go get something to eat. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew if I waited, I’d end up hangry, and no one wants that. Steve actually got finished with his work for the day just after 1:00, so he and I had lunch together and came back to the room so he could finish some work stuff before a deadline.  

After he was done, we took a drive around where we are staying. Ostensibly, we were looking for a Publix so we could get a toll pass (hastared toll roads are everywhere) but we also stopped at a place called Kung Fu Tea and got boba. What I really wanted to do was go find the gift shop for UCF so I could buy a sweatshirt, but we never found it! If we did find it, we never found where we could park. It was so freaking frustrating. I mean, the campus is basically a series of concentric circles, so it shouldn’t have been hard, but it was. We basically followed the rule of “don’t make it hard for us to spend our money at your establishment” and we gave up. 

Today ended up being very chill and uneventful, but I didn’t mind. This isn’t a normal vacation, after all, and we have other stuff planned for the week, so it will get more exciting, I think! 

Addendum: My allergies have kicked in high gear. I don’t know what it is I’m allergic to, but I’ve been sniffing, sneezing, and coughing all day. I’m afraid that I’m going to get tackled by strangers and taken to a CDC facility before I can explain that I’m just allergic to the outside.

BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: ORLANDO, FLORIDA MARCH 8, 2020

Since mid February, Steve has been traveling for work quite a bit. He was in California for a couple of weeks (he finally got to go to the OG Disneyland!) and was scheduled to fly to Orlando, FL last Sunday for a job that would keep him there for a week...as well as give him a chance to go to Disney World. Let’s not pretend that wasn’t on the table. Hehe 

Of course, we all know the panic the US has been living under for the past few weeks about COVID-19, and how the idea of flying has been collectively giving us all the willies, so as Steve was beginning to pack for his new trip, I casually mentioned that it was too bad he wasn’t driving. He’d done it before, lots of times, and although it’s a roughly 9 hour and change drive, he never seemed to mind it. Plus...being in a car alone reduces the chances some germ laden stranger would cough on him. I also, just joking, said that if he drove, I could go too! 

To my surprise, he warmed to the idea! Well, we warmed to the idea of driving, and almost immediately decided that would be what he’d do. Then, slowly, we started circling the idea of me going as well. Going along on someone else’s work trips can be a bit tricky. They will be working, which leaves you on your own during the day, usually without a vehicle. Plus, if there are meetings, or client dinners, that can cause some issues after work hours. We talked about me going along for while and, although he seemed amenable to the idea, I asked him Pointedly if he wanted me to go to make sure I wouldn’t be in the way, and he said “You can do it if you want.”

Ok, let me stop here for a moment and go on a tangent. If there is a phrase used in the process of making plans that I hate more than just about anything, it’s “you can if you want to.” That is as frustrating and non-commital as you can get, and if a person (like myself) wants to know how someone else feels about a particular idea, that phrase is completely loaded. Of course I can go if I want to. We live in America! I can do almost anything I want! However, I want to know if YOU want me to do something, and that is a completely different thing. I recognize that the other person is giving me the freedom to make a choice, which is good, but I also need feedback. I live in perpetual fear that I am going to end up someplace where I’m not wanted. That is not a joke. It is one of those weird glitches in my brain, but I have an actual, deeply instilled fear of intruding into things/getting other people involved in things they don’t want to do. I may be one of the few people in the world where you can say you don’t want me someplace who won’t get wildly insulted. Seriously, about ten years ago I went to a wedding that I asked if I should come, was told “you can come if you want to” and against every instinctive had, I went, and I haven’t ever been able to shake the feeling I crashed it. You can ask the groom if you don’t believe me. It plagues me!

Anyways, Let’s circle back to the subject. Hehe!

I did consider not going along, to be quite honest. When Steve goes out of town, there are certain activities I enjoy having the freedom to do. I can watch whatever I want on TV, eat when and what I feel like, go to bed at 7:30 just to watch Netflix under the covers until I fall asleep, as well as other stuff that I guess would fall under the category of guilty pleasures, but let’s be real, I don’t ever feel guilty about the things that give me pleasure! :) I’d even sent some feelers out to a friend about getting together, but hadn’t heard back from them yet. Sometimes it’s nice to have the house to yourself for a couple of days, but also, I do love a good road trip! I also love to visit other places and try new stuff, and although I would be visiting Disney World (*Forrest Gump Voice*) AGAIN, I decided that a trip was just what I needed.  

So that is how I found myself in the passenger seat of a rented Camero, driving south, and on an adventure! The drive somehow felt simultaneously fast, and as if it took forever. With our busy Saturday and losing an hour, I was running on three hours of sleep and in a state of half asleep almost the whole way. We stopped quite a bit for different reasons, and of course we washed our hands at every place we visited. My go to washing song is the chorus to”The Gambler.” If sung at tempo, it lasts 23 seconds, which gives you time to rinse! I was going to learn “Jolene” but that song makes me too angry. Gurl, if your husband is in love with Jolene, it’s your husband you need to talk to. Oy.

By the time we got to our hotel, I was on the edge of exhaustion. We went out for dinner (at an excellent Mexican restaurant with a mariachi band, and while the music was great, it was so loud. The trumpet player was right by our table, and I felt like he was slapping me with music!) and came back to the hotel* and went to bed. It was a long, but fun, day!

*The family in the next room have what sounds like twelve screaming kids in there. We called the front desk and complained because we could clearly hear everything they were saying through the walls. I felt like a jerk to complain, but it was either that, or try and sleep while their three year old screamed directly into the vent that went between our rooms. Thankfully, after someone from the front desk went to talk to them, they quieted down. Whew.

THREE THINGS

I'm afraid I've been kind of irritating on Twitter lately.

I don't know why I think it's irritating, exactly, except that I know some people tend to think any kind of (I'm having trouble thinking of the term I'm looking for, but when you go out of your way to be cheerful or whatever) is cheesy.  Maybe I'm projecting.  Hehe.

Anyways, I happened to be reading an article that linked to a Reddit thread asking about what things made people glad to be alive. I like things like that, because you can learn a lot about people and what they enjoy that way. There were a lot of answers, some sweet, some kind of...ick...but then again, it's Reddit, so you have to expect that. I decided to add my own two cents into the mix and instead of Reddit, I put them on Twitter.  Off the top of my head, I thought of these:

1) Walking the beach and finding cool seashells. 2) Slow, hot, deep kisses that set every cell in your body on fire. 3) Dogs. Sometimes cats. Mostly dogs.

Now, obviously, to me those are some pretty damn good things; things that aren't common.

As an exercise, that was kind of fun, but it also made me think about my everyday life.

I don't talk about it much, and that's for a reason, but I've been struggling a bit these days. When you're a kid, and you think about being a grown-up, you always think you'll have everything together.  Most people think they'll have a great job, lots of friends, family, money...whatever. If we're lucky, we might have some or all of those things, in one degree or another.

But no one ever really prepares you for how hard it can be sometimes, even for the most privileged of us. Don't misunderstand, I know that I have it better than 99% of the rest of the world (I think, I didn't check that statistic) but I'm not talking about material things. I'm talking about, just, life.

No one tells you how hard it is to go to work everyday (if you have a job) and do stuff that you aren't passionate about. My jobs are great and I'm beyond grateful I have them, but working reception and in office admin isn't what my heart wants to do everyday. The fact that I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up scares the shit out of me sometimes. I should have some idea, shouldn't I?

No one tells you how lonely it can be when your friends are all over the place and how bitter it can make you. Not bitter at your friends, obviously, because it isn't their fault, but bitter at the universe for taking them away. Of course, you can always go out and make new friends, they say, but it's not the same as having the people you love the most, the people that are a part of your heart, out of arms reach.  Sometimes it feels like you're holding a bunch of balloon strings as tight as you can, but every once in a while one slips out of your hand and it breaks your heart because you can't catch it no matter how hard you try. I'm so glad for social media, and texting, and other things like that, because I've been able to keep my friends virtually nearby, if not physically.

No one tells you that sometimes you'll just be so freaking BORED. That you'll try to find a million things to do to fill your time, but sometimes you don't want to do any of it. You'll wind up sitting on your couch, looking at the internet, or staring at the TV and not really paying attention. If anyone had ever told me that one day I'd rather stay in bed with my iPad all day rather than making something, or going someplace, I'd have thought it was a lie, but it happens sometimes. Also, I never knew that there would be times when the only thing to look forward to would be eating, and how that has wreaked havoc on my physical self. I mean, dude...

But all that being said, it doesn't mean my life is bad. I have a pretty good life on the whole, actually, and I'm glad for that. I also know I'm not the only one who feels that way sometimes. There are days, though, that feel so heavy and gray and as flavorless as old gum. I struggle with depression sometimes, and I know myself well enough that if I can't shake my brain loose from it, I'll sink way down and stick there for weeks, only really living in fits and starts. During this time of year (and for some reason during the month of June) it's easier to fall into that than other times, and recently I've been feeling that way more than usual. Is it a mid life crisis?  Maybe. Who knows?

So, I've said all of that to explain why I've begun trying to find at least three things every day that make me glad to be alive. Some of those things are big, but most of them are tiny, seemingly insignificant, things that no one else might ever notice, but they add just a little light into my day. Sometimes it's a message from one of my far away friends, sometimes it's ice cream, and sometimes it's talking to the nice lady at my gym that makes my workout feel faster. I put them on Twitter because I hope that someone else who might be struggling, can be reminded that little things in their own lives can be really great things too!

I also hope that, if you're reading this and you're feeling down, that you can find three, or even just one, thing every day that makes you glad to still be here. They're out there, I promise.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING: IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME

1) Wow, so Happy New Year! *Fireworks

It feels like it shouldn't be 2020, yet here we are, over two months in. Sorry for the delay. Honestly, you have missed very little.

I didn't update anything during December of last year because I was busy almost every damn day.  I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it wasn't.  The first day I had to myself was December 26th, and I didn't really even have that to myself, but it was the first day of that month that I didn't have to go to work, church, to some kind of gathering, or anything like that. I mostly slept.  It was amazing.  Christmas was great, however. I got to spend it with family, which I love dearly, although I missed my friends that are scattered far and wide. Being an adult sucks sometimes, because where you might have once had dinner or coffee with a friend, caught up for a bit, said Happy Holidays and all of that, there is no time for that anymore. We are all in our own spaces and places, and while that is understandable, I still miss seeing them in person. Social media creates a pale shade of friendship sometimes, but we take what we can get these days.

2) I also didn't update anything in January, because not much of note happened then, either.  Seriously, I just had to look at my phone to see if we actually did anything during the month. Haha! Of course you know the saying, pics or it didn't happen! 

I was actually reminded that we did go out for new years eve. Steve, Anthony, and me went to Noccalula Falls Park because they had the whole place strung up with lights for Christmas, and since we'd never had time to go during December we went that night. It was weird and trippy and so much fun!  It was like someone on acid decided to decorate their yard for the holidays. There was a little train that circled the place and a petting zoo with a lemur! (We didn't get to pet the lemur, damnit, but it was there and that's what is important.) I suppose it sounds kind of childish, but we had a really good time. The drive up there was fun, as journeys with friends usually are, and on our way home we had dinner at the Boaz Waffle House. I'm fairly certain we shared the evening with a meth dealer, because Boaz Waffle House. We got home, literally, just a few minutes before midnight, toasted, and went to bed. It was a fun evening.

Oooh!  Steve and I also got to go to this thing at the SpRocket (ptooey) called the Mad Scientist Bash, which is, well, a mad scientist themed fundraising party where the money goes to sponsor STEM programs. Steve's company bought some tickets, and since he knew I was always ready to wear a costume, he said we would go! It was a lot of fun, and we looked so cute!  BEHOLD:

We had to go to a legit medical supply place to buy our lab coats, and trying to explain to the lady who was helping us why we needed them was a little weird, but she had a good sense of humor about it. It was slightly swanky, costumes notwithstanding, and I have learned that this kind of thing is full of people who have money that they can toss at a fundraiser all willy-nilly. A lady at our table threw out $1,800.00 on something she probably can't even use during the auction portion of the evening, and while that isn't a lot of money in the larger scheme of things, it is a lot to bid at an auction on a whim. She asked if we were going to bid on anything and all I could do was laugh nervously. I've never sat so still in my whole life. I couldn't even scratch my nose! Other than that, we had a grand old time. 

There was one thing that kind of, well, it didn't hurt my feelings exactly, but it irked me.  I haven't worked there in 10 years, but there are people still there that worked with me for years and years. People that I went to dinners with and hung out with outside of work and all of that. I saw a lady I've known for I don't know how long, and stopped to say hello, and she had no idea who I was. This is someone I considered a friend and she didn't have a clue. I have seen her and talked to her several times since I left the place, even, so for her not to know me was weird. Eh, well, maybe she didn't recognize me because she didn't expect to see me with Huntsville-society-old-money-people. Haha! 


3) I have been working a lot, which is another reason I haven't posted much. Working at the church, at the cybersecurity office, and doing my freelance work makes for one dull boy...uh, I mean, Kelly.  By the time I come home from work, and if I don't have any graphics stuff to do, I usually turn my brain off. I need to stop doing that, or I'm going to become a pudding brain. I haven't done any of my hobbies in months and months! I have good intentions, and I make trips to Hobby Lobby for supplies that end up sitting on a shelf, but one day I'll get back to it!

All of my jobs are currently going well, though, although I've cut my time at the newest job in half until the new contracts open up in a month or so. I still really like my new boss, and I haven't had to travel again, but I've come to realize that I actually enjoy office admin work I do there. I'm on the ground floor, so eventually as the business grows I'll move on to something else, but I'm having fun helping her get started and organized. Also, I love her dog Henry. :)

4) My birthday was wonderful this year, thank you for asking. Everyone I love the most in the world was a part of it in one way or another. I got to have lunch with my mom and sister, which was fun. I also decided that, since I went to the trouble of buying a cocktail dress for a party that I didn't end up getting to go to, that I would wear it on our day out. I was a big, chubby, green sequined disco ball of a person, and I don't regret it a bit! I was a glorious land-dwelling mermaid! I got to at least talk/message with my friends that I couldn't see in person, and one of them made me a video that I loved wholeheartedly, and it was just a very good day. I hope I have many more birthdays just as nice. 

5) This morning, I had a very bad anxiety attack at the gym and had to leave less than three minutes into my work out. I am SO PISSED OFF. Y'all, I hate that I have anxiety attacks. They make me feel scared and weak and helpless and I am NONE OF THOSE THINGS. I hate every single second of them. I'm actually kind of glad that I am angry about it, because angry sure beats the hell out of scared. My newer medication usually take care of them, but I've had a couple attacks recently that have knocked me flat. I don't know why the meds have off days, but there you go.  What makes me even madder about this morning was that I really need to be able to go to the gym. No, really, I do. I have gained back every pound, plus extra, that I lost on that horrible diet we did in 2018 (which I will one day talk about when I'm not so embarrassed about it) and when I am motivated enough to work out, I need to do it. I literally ran out of the gym and hid at home. Stupid brain making stupid crossed signals!  I am a powerful sea witch, you guys! I don't have time for anxiety attacks!  Grrrr.

6) So I think that catches us all up! I know you haven't been holding your breath about what I've been doing, but I do like to check in now and again so that you know that, as of this writing at least, I am still alive. I hope you're still alive too!  I mean, I guess you are since you're reading thing, but I hope the being alive continues. For the both of us. I want us all to be alive for a good long time to come. You know what I mean. I'll quit typing now.

7) WAIT! One more thing.

I hug you.

I HAVE A THEORY

I have this theory that all of our weird, irrational fears come from the way we died in other lives.

For example:

My fear of heights: I probably fell out of a tree or down a mountain or something.

My fear of suffocation: I was probably murdered by a jealous lover in my sleep or buried alive by a jealous lover. (Honestly, I'd be disappointed if I wasn't murdered by a jealous lover in one of my past lives, so LET ME HAVE THIS, OK?)

My fear of suddenly dying: I probably suddenly died, like, at a baseball game in front of thousands of people.

I have others, but I'll spare you.

Anyways, I figure that if reincarnation could possibly be real, then all the stuff we are afraid of that doesn't make sense comes from things that made a big enough impression on us at another time, and what could make a bigger impression on us than something that kills us?!

I know, this is a hell of a way to resume blogging after all this time, but honestly, I just needed to write that down and I figured I might as well share my wisdom with all of you fine folks! :)

Also, I started another entry weeks ago and haven't finished it yet, so this is what you get right now.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND STUFF!  *Fireworks!*


PS: Please don't tell the preacher I'm thinking about reincarnation. He'd disapprove.

I CONQUERED THE CAVE AND IT CONQUERED ME

Well, that was an...experience.

As you might remember, back in September Steve and I signed up for a 5K race and I totally failed it. It was close to 100 degrees that day, I was apparently dehydrated, and I managed to get heat exhaustion not even halfway through it so I had to stop.  It sucked, man, and I was very upset with myself for not finishing.

It wasn't long after that, that the same racing outfit decided that it had been so popular that they needed to have another race at the same location in November, and in a burst of inspiration, Steve decided that I should redo the race so that I could finally finish it and not have it hanging over my head anymore. So he signed both of us up for it. He told me that this time he would stay with me the whole time and make sure I finished it. He is a much faster runner than I am, and I knew that meant I'd be holding him back (which I wasn't thrilled about) but I mean, I genuinely thought that was a very sweet thought and gesture, so I agreed.

I wasn't thrilled at the prospect, though.  Almost falling out at the earlier race had actually scared me a lot more than I had realized at the time. I don't usually get dizzy and fainty like that, and the experience had really unsettled me. Knowing Steve would be with me on the course helped, but also knowing that it could happen again (maybe not the heat exhaustion since it was in November) made me afraid of trying.

In the meantime, I signed up for and ran/walked another 5K in October. There is a big to do here about breast cancer research, and there is a race every year to benefit the charity that Steve's company does. I was afraid that I wouldn't finish that race either, but I did manage to do it.  I couldn't run very much, though. I can't seem to catch my breath enough to run anymore. I also realized that a big part of my anxiety stems from the fact that I can't seem to BREATHE enough! Ugh, I hate that feeling so very much.  Anyway, I made it through that, which helped, but the closer I got to the November race, the more anxious I became.

Y'all, I literally had nightmares the night before this race. Like, stupid ones. I dreamed I went to the bathroom and ended up starting the race 10 minutes late, then found out the race was more like an obstacle course and I had to figure out these weird puzzles before I could advance to the next part. Then when I got to the final leg of the race (everyone was on roller skates by this point) I couldn't figure out which way to run, and I couldn't find the roller skates. I finally started yelling at the judges (?) and started saying that I couldn't find the skates, and one of them removed a hidden panel on the wall to uncover the skates. I started screaming "HOW THE F*CK WAS I SUPPOSED TO FIND THEM IF THEY WERE IN THE WALL????!!!!" only to then be told the race was over and I wasn't going to be allowed to finish at all.  That's about the time I work up and realized that I was taking the whole thing WAY too seriously.  Hehe.

We had to leave the house at the crack of dawn to get to the state park and it was absolutely pouring down rain the entire time.  I hoped that it would stop by the time we got there, but alas, I was disappointed. The second I stepped out of the car, I sank into an ankle deep puddle.  So, out of the gate I had wet feet.  Somehow, defying physics and hydrodynamics as I understand them, water was running and standing everywhere regardless of elevation, incline, surface, and grade.  Seriously, there was no place to make a path. You had to just walk through water no matter where you stepped. We found a small tent near packet pick up, and that sheltered us a little, but we were already soaked from walking there. We finally decided that we should just stand out in the rain to acclimatize us to it.  That sucked.

The 15K runners left 15 minutes before we did, and we finally got to start on the trail. Oh, did I mention that this was a trail race?  Yeah.  I can't run on pavement, but we were going to be in the woods and shit. Nice. Once we started I was able to run a little, but then my breath seized up and I had to stop and walk. Steve was as good as his word, though. He stayed by me even when I had a mild panic attack as we were walking.  I broke through that, and finally found my stride.  Fast walking in the gentle rain wasn't so bad. However, about the time we reached the next trailhead, the bottom fell out and I couldn't see.  Steve had to pull me into the tree cover before I could open both eyes again (I was afraid my contacts would wash out.) Oh, and that trail was a special kind of hell.  I don't know how, on the side of a freaking mountain, you can have standing shin high water, but it happened. Mud sucked at our shoes as we stomped our way down the trail, trying to find purchase and not slip on any rocks.  Steve was ahead of me, but I managed to keep up if only because I wanted out of that trail so badly. I twisted my ankle three times, almost lost my shoe, and said several curse words before we made it out of the woods. I had nature all over me and I was unhappy.

The rest of the race was mostly on paved paths, except for some reason we had to go across a field. It was mostly underwater, so that cleaned some of the mud off at least.  The big hill that got me last time was cut from the race, but we still had to go up a fairly steep service road before we finally made it to the cave!  It was here that I screwed up a little.

The race is weird because there are people going both ways on the walkway inside the cave. Directions are that we are supposed to stay to our left, no matter which way we are running, so no one runs into each other.  There were two pathways into the cave, one on the left and one on the right, but I saw the people in front of us run to the path on the right and stay to the left of that path.  Does that make sense?  Steve directed me to the left path and no one was on it, so I said I didn't think we were going the right way.  Heh, damn, this is confusing.  He swore that we were in the correct place, but for some reason he listened to me and we joined the other (right) path and headed in.  In about a minute, I realized he had been right all along because I hit the timing mat going the wrong way and saw the clock register my name and a time that defied anything I could have actually done.  Well, crap. Also, just after that a guy saw us and said we were going the wrong way, and Steve said we were following everyone else. The guy said "Don't Follow Anyone Else!"  Wow, thanks guy. Glad you were standing halfway in the cave to tell us that.  Ugh.  At any rate, I got to the back, got my glow stick (proof you went all the way in) and made it out and got my medal!  Woo-Hoo!  I actually finished the race in 1:07:43:12, but the official stats say I finished in 42:02:17.  Going the wrong way on the course is the only way I'd ever get a time like that.  I feel like I should tell them my time is wrong so that the rankings will not be skewed, but I don't know if it matters that much.  Hehe, it feels like stolen valor, though!

I was so glad it was over when I got out of the cave. Everything hurt and I was soaking wet, and I realized in that moment that no matter how much I wish I was good at running, I don't think I ever will be. I know I could spend every free moment running and working up to things and getting better, but it would take more work that I think I want to put into it.  I mean, I could beat my body into submission, but would it make me hate running? I like running, I wish I was better, I like crossing finish lines, but I don't know if I want it bad enough to make it my hobby, and I think I would have to.  Granted, I know that the shape I am in now (which is round. Round is a shape) I need to be doing something, but I don't know if running is the thing I want to do. That makes me a little sad, but I'll figure something out, I hope. We'll see.

Oh, and there are photos from this race, but I will never, ever show them to anyone. First off, the pink and gray ensemble that I chose for the occasion was a bad choice. I looked like a giant, wet, morbidly obese, raw turkey wearing muddy shoes. My hair was pulled back so tight that it looked like I was bald underneath my wide hair band, and worse....oh worse...  Forgive me for being crude, but nipples.  I was cold, and my sports bra was apparently no match for my headlights.  Every single picture of me prominently displays them, and trust me, it isn't cute.  I am going to keep the photos though, so I can look at them and remember that day, but only so I can laugh. Hehe.

All of the unplesantness aside, I did finish the race, and I'm proud of that! Even if Steve had to be my seeing eye person, and sometimes pull me up a hill.  I might be undignified, but I am a finisher this time. Since that Saturday I've been sore, exhausted, and realized just how out of shape I have become, but damnit, I finished my race!