The Vid Post

I made it three years into the pandemic before getting the Vid, and when I got it last spring I did my obligatory five day-quarantine. The first two days were true sick days, but by the final three days I was feeling recovered and very uncomfortable because I don’t generally do nothing for such a long period of time. I had a lot of guilt around the nothing doing, especially since everyone I knew was working. Completely illogical, but true.

The experience, in two lists:

Things I Thought While Having Covid

I should really do Kegels

Is this what my actual lungs taste like? Ew.

How did we leave the Easter decorations up this long? It’s May, right? Wait, is it May?

What should I do with the rest of my life?

Why can’t I swallow pills? Will I ever learn this skill? Maybe I’ll save that for the next life.

Will anyone read my book? Does anyone read my blog? Are blogs completely out?

What even is my life? Could I make a map of my life so far? Turns out I can. It looks like spaghetti. Forget it.

Things I Cried About While Having Covid

My dogs are cute.

I missed Tommy’s band award ceremony where he got an award for Outstanding Senior.

Remember Obama?

Shayne asked me my temperature via text.

My niece texted me that Tommy’s grad announcement is adorable. My brother Tim won’t see Tommy graduate, won’t see the invite, can’t call to offer congratulations and reminisce with me about our lives and how we are old. The band is breaking up even more.

The We Can Do Hard Things podcast with the Andrea Gibson/Megan Falley interview.

The dad who works for the Cowboys who got to tell his son he was drafted to the Cowboys. “You want to come to work with me next week?” I don’t even like football but damn. Okay, okay.

My boss brought work to my house so I wouldn’t burn all my PTO. I’m so lucky to work with such nice people.

Cry laughed at the lady who tripped in her driveway and then stayed horizontal while yelling, “Just run over me world!” Then cried for real about that lady because maybe she was really hurt in more than just the pride spots, and I was already crying so sure why not.

Shayne bought me a ring because my old ring makes my finger feel claustrophobic and panicky since I jammed my knuckle trying to catch a Nerf football (I’m an athlete in case you didn’t know). This ring is cute and has an S and doesn’t actually close and its so loving and thoughtful.

Currently reading:

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb – A reread. I love this book. Lots of good info here plus it’s kind of voyeuristic in an interesting way.

The Ruins by Scott Smith – Oh man, I left two characters in a deep hole with vines that may or may not kill them and people with nocked bows who may or may not kill them and the rope is too short to save them and their friends are kind of dumb and nobody has a phone and it’s very stressful. I’ve never seen the movie but after the book for sure I’ll be watching.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – Every year

I Also Worried

You ever write a poem over a poem? I hope Mary Oliver won’t mind, wherever she may be these days.

Her original:

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

Mine:

I worry a lot. Will my car break down? Will my son get beat up by a hater, will I get shot in a school, the Buddhist Center, the movie theater, my favorite coffee shop? And what can I do to make us safer besides vote because it all feels like a scam, a sham, a fake broken system of bullshit.

Why did I say that? Why didn’t I say this? Am I turning into an angry person? Am I doing this life right?

Will I ever write a book? AI can do it, why can’t I? I’m not hopeless but I definitely have been stuck at page 200 of my novel for an uncomfortably long time.

Why is my body so sore all the days and why can’t I find the magic shoes that keep my right foot from screaming at me by 3:00 in the afternoon? Will I get cancer, dementia; will I go broke?

I only know that worrying does nothing between the hours 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., and I know I should stop but the 3:00 a.m. worry monster has befriended me; it sits next to my bed sending night sweats and what ifs.

But still, I take my body on a run/walk because that’s what I can do now. When I run, I use an app to dodge zombies and search for invisible survival supplies with a dog named Shark. And yet, I write, even if I surely won’t get rich and famous.

Hey Jimmy: Thanks for the Music

My doctor is concerned about my bloodwork. We raked and bagged all the leaves in Grandma’s yard and it took three days for my body to recover. My twenty-something coworkers call me “classic” and ask me for “mom advice.” And the celebrities who I never considered old are dying. First Jimmy took all his good energy and flip flopped up to the next life, and now our Friend Matthew P is breaking my heart. I have never been one to get overly upset when a famous person dies, but lately I’ve been feeling more touched. My hair is losing tint and my body is losing muscle and I guess I am feeling some kind of way about all of it. Like so many before me, I see the face looking back at me in mirror and think Wait. What? Or to paraphrase Nora Ephron, What the fuck is happening to my neck? Maybe being upset about the death of a celebrity is just another look at my personal doomsday clock. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I didn’t give much thought to my reflection, but age and regrets do creep up on you, if you’re lucky, and I run away from the mirror like I stole something.

When Jimmy Buffett died, I found myself feeling nostalgic and sad, like how I felt when my eldest brother died earlier this year. The world is just a sadder place because neither of these men are in it. My brother and Jimmy tried to live good lives, and I was inspired by both. Nobody is pure good, but my brother tried to put good in his corner of the world, and I know Jimmy did, too.

Interestingly, I know two people who met Jimmy Buffett, and both said he was “just a regular guy.” One of the people was my eldest brother Tim. It’s fitting that Jimmy and Tim met while surfing. Two strangers, waiting for a good wave, chatting about life; what a perfect way for them to cross paths. The second person I know who met Jimmy is my father-in-law, Matt. He was at a bar in the Virgin Islands, and Jimmy was there, messing around with his guitar and shooting the shit with strangers, as a regular guy would. Matt is not one to get starstruck, but he is one to appreciate boat drinks and changes in latitudes, just like Jimmy. I wish I could have been there that day. I never met the man, but I’ve seen Jimmy in concert twice, and the buzz of the experience lingered forever. I wanted to worry a little less and live in Margaritaville a little more, and every time I hear his music I am reminded of that message.

A snapshot: Maybe it’s because I was in what some call the best part of a person’s life – my early twenties – but nostalgia has me remembering this as a magical time. My old journals tell the real story: I was always broke, very lonely, a closeted gay person in my small town, waiting for my life to really begin. But I had good friends, I was in college and feeling excited about it, and I could say yes to a Jimmy Buffett concert in LA even though I wasn’t sure if I even liked his music. At that age, I said yes to more things (note to self: What happened to make you say No more than Yes these days?).

If I had a time machine and a guaranteed return ticket, I would go back. I would be able to drive 200 miles south to visit my grandma, who hadn’t been diagnosed with lung cancer yet. I could get to the beach every day and I could hit Farmer’s Market in San Luis Obispo with my best friend every Thursday night. We’d both be younger, we could see better and walk farther and the soundtrack of my life would be Jimmy Buffett, Cat Stevens, Steve Miller Band, Indigo Girls, and Metallica. I made a playlist that exactly matches the concert at the Hollywood Bowl in June 1991, and every song takes me back to that time, those friends, me and all of my insecurities, and of course, the beach.

I guess we all have our nostalgic music. I mean, we just had the summer of Taylor Swift, right? I once met someone who told me they didn’t like music. At all. My friend and I play Dealbreakers together and argue about whether or not this is one. Is the date over if they don’t like music? If your life together will have no soundtrack? I’m on the fence, but I guess I want to know how they live without music in their life.

The soundtrack of this moment in life is varied, but I hit it up a lot. When walking/running, cooking, cleaning my house, writing, road tripping on the Harley: Sublime, Dirty Heads, Pepper, Eminem, Ram Jam, Lady Sovereign, The Record Company, Lethal Bizzle, Lizzo, One Republic, For Minor, Avici, The Wind and the Wave, Lil Nas, Steppenwolf, Outkast, Beyonce, Awkwafina, Florence+The Machine, Eddie Vedder, Boss, Lit, Bikini Kill, Stellar, The Cramps, Poco, ZZ Top, Rina Sawayama, Southern Pacific, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Bob Dylon, Stevie Nicks, The Jesus and Mary Train, Missy Elliot, Elle King, Joe Walsh, the Eagles. And of course, Jimmy B.

I’m just in a mood to appreciate music, to honor the people working hard to put their art in the world, even when the world doesn’t love it. That’s the thing I loved about Jimmy Buffett. He pushed and pushed and ignored the critics. That’s the good word for all of us. What would JB do? He would keep on hustling. Become a musician? Sure. Start a chain of restaurants? Yep. Be a pilot? Okay. A Sailor? Uh huh. How about be a writer? Got it. Bam! Jimmy would go get it. That’s how he lived his life and I still love his music after all these years. But more than the music, of course it’s the message. Finding a paradise. Remembering what is important. Doing what makes you happy. It is 5:00 somewhere. Actually, it’s 5:00 here and now. Gotta go.

Reading:

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by Charlie Fletcher

Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford

Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon by Michael Ghiglieri and Thomas Myers

Why Pride?

Recently, my wife (hi Shayne) and I were outside Costco, looking at potted flowers to bring to Buddha’s birthday celebration at the Reno Buddhist Center. We were on errand number three, and the day had started with a grande latte, so I had to pee right-this-second. Usually when we go to Costco, I am the card flasher at the door, because I might be an anal-retentive rule follower, and I always have the card READY TO GO. On this day though, I flashed my card and left Shayne to the flowers so I could pay latte dues.

Decisions were made about flowers, and Shayne was at the door, searching unsuccessfully for her own Costco card. As sometimes happens, there was a person behind her who was getting ultra-agitated because he wanted to get to the samples RIGHT NOW BECAUSE WHAT IF THEY RUN OUT? Shayne was keeping him from his birthright: free chicken wings and quartered blueberry muffins to be consumed out of tiny muffin cups, and the deep sighs and throat clearing were ramping up. The woman who worked at Costco waved Shayne in, without the card, because “your person is already in there, you can go ahead.” Hearing this made me want to cry.

It might be hard to relate, but it feels very good to be seen as a couple. Sure we got gay marriage in 2014, but that means that for the first 23 years of my adult dating life, marriage was not an option for me. And without being attached to a man, or even being a player in the game of male attraction, I became an invisible woman. If you aren’t with a man, and worse, you don’t want to be, you are dismissed in our society. So to NOT be invisible or dismissed is very sweet. Like the coffee shop owner knowing your usual, or unexpectedly seeing your friend in the grocery store, you feel accepted and welcomed, a part of the WE.

Obviously LGBTQIA people aren’t mainstream, but we do find acceptance in a lot of places these days. We are finding more hatred and violence as well. It’s a weird and confusing time. People want to think it is a better, more open-minded world (you got marriage, what else do you need?), but it’s not, especially if you are trans or non-binary or gender queer. It’s just ridiculous, our attachment to binary everything. I can’t speak to what it feels like to be gender queer, but I can tell you my own history of being a lesbian for 32 years (gasp).

Let’s time travel:

I’m eight years old and my mom asks me what I want to be when I grow up. I tell her I want to be a doctor so my wife can stay home and keep the house clean. I envision a future that doesn’t involve washing dishes and doing laundry. The look of fear and confusion on my mom’s face makes me backpedal like crazy. I didn’t mean to speak my secret out loud – I already know it is wrong to have crushes on all the girls in 3rd grade.

I’m in middle school, and there are a few girls being called “dykes.” I ask my mom what that means and when she answers me, red-faced and panting, I can tell dyke is a bad word for a bad person. I vow not to become one, even though everything in me is 100% lesbian. At the dances I go undercover and ask all the boys to dance. This seems like a good plan to reach my ultimate goal of never being called a dyke, but it just makes all the boys uncomfortable. Apparently I am supposed to wait for them to ask me to dance. Girls are supposed to be timid and graceful. It’s all so confusing that I quit going to dances. My mom is upset. She starts her own conversion therapy that includes heavy doses of shaming and weirdly, Playgirl subscriptions and porn. I am convinced that under my mom’s tutelage, even the straightest girl would have been scared gay.

I’m in high school, playing sports and ignoring boys. I’m called “tomboy” and “late bloomer” and probably “dyke” by my peers. I have a crush on the only other girl on my soccer team (hey Julie) and my friends are trying to set me up with every boy they can. I keep myself as busy as possible and find fault with every offered boy, but I can’t outrun this problem: I know I am gay. I tell no one. There is nothing to read, no role models, no websites, so I just decide something is very wrong with me. Luckily and thankfully, I’m not suicidal, just lonely, confused, and feeling stuck. I tell myself that someday my life will be my own and I’ll do what I want.

I’m in college and I finally have a secret girlfriend. My straight friends make fun of lesbians and call them disgusting, so I drop all of them, including my roommate. I sleep on the couch of my gay soccer coach, saving money to leave the town where I feel like I only have one friend (Hey Candy!). I love my little town but I know I have to go. I come out to my mom, who tells me “It’s not your fault, you had an aunt who was gay.” Pro tip: don’t talk about fault when someone comes out to you. Especially if you tried to convert them to straight for ten years. I come out to my dad in an airport, and he says nothing more than “well, I better go now.” I don’t hear from him again for a few years. My grandpa dies and even then, he doesn’t reach out. I feel rejected by my dad, and tolerated by my mom.

In my new city, (Hey Albuquerque), I find gay bars, I work in a restaurant that welcomes the gays, and overall I feel like I found my people. I answer ridiculous questions about being gay and then later wonder why I entertained these extremely personal questions from strangers (Do you hate men? Are you a lesbian because you were you sexually abused? How long have you known? How did your parents take it? Can I watch?). My partner’s dad refers to me as her “little buddy.” I don’t know what to do with that so I just laugh it off. I spend a lot of time laughing on the outside only.

I move to a new city (Hey Reno) and get a “real job.” I have to come out a lot of times to a lot of people. This time I’m in a relationship that is called “domestic partner,” and I get different questions (Have you ever had sex with a man? In your relationship, who is the man? Were you gay before you met your person? Are you guys sisters?)

I have a baby (Hi Tommy!). I feel like an outsider in all of the mommy circles. I come out what feels like a million more times: to moms, dads, parents, teachers, and coaches. In order to have a baby, I have to take a personality test and see a psychologist, who advises us to make sure our child has lots of positive male role models.  I ask the doctor if straight people are also asked to see a psychologist in order to be inseminated, but he avoids the question. I let it go. I feel like I am living a lifetime of letting it go.

I get married. We joke and call it gay married, and I revel in being able to say “my wife.” We are invited into the club, and it feels great to feel like we are protected. We can make decisions about and for each other. We can be on the other’s insurance, visit each other in hospitals, and do all of the things that the “marriage is just a piece of paper” people seem to forget matter.

I become a teacher and I get asked about “my husband” all the time. I protect my personal life while none of my colleagues seem to worry about doing the same. Their desk pictures of the straight family and daily references to Mr. X in reference to their husband is not indoctrinating anyone into a certain kind of lifestyle. “Don’t say gay” feels like I better disappear myself into some kind of 1990’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell abyss. I leave teaching for many reasons, but I feel a weird kind of relief. I no longer need to worry that this crazy world will delete this gay teacher.

I’m still not feeling right in this world but I feel more accepted than ever before. I’m lucky. My pronouns match my gender. I wear clothes that fit my gender (mostly). Sure I suck at dressing like a woman in a fancy situation, but still, I don’t get stared at too often. I’m relatively safe, and I can use public restrooms without being hassled. It’s sad that in America that’s lucky.

In 2023, a record number of anti-LGBTQIA bills have been introduced in America, and it feels like we are going backward so fast we can’t even see. It’s a blur of hate. Back to ew disgusting and shame and shhh and the best we can give you is we won’t ask and if you don’t tell we will let you in our spaces (hi gay and trans teachers, I see you).

It makes me sad that a drag queen story hour needs security, but it makes me happy that here in my state, we still have it. I’d feel sadder if it wasn’t for Gen Z, who wear their pronouns like unapologetic name tags and bravely pave the way. I visit pride for a few hours and they stay all day and night. I feel good about the future, because of them.

Currently reading:

Tales of the City series by Armisted Maupin

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

Getting older kind of sneaks up on you. Even my period is quiet quitting. In the same way you look at your kid who shaves and drives and think wait, how did that happen?, I look in the mirror and my brain thinks Who is that because we are 30. I am slowly moving from denial to acceptance. It’s like when you realize you need reading glasses. You buy one pair and only use them at home, by yourself, in secret. You tell yourself your eyes are just tired; that’s the only reason you need these geezer goggles. Then you buy a few more pairs, and soon you somehow own twenty and the glasses occupy space in your life like ChapSticks. You have a pair in the car, the back pack, the drawer by your Lazy Boy, the desk, the bedside table. Basically, I’m never a foot away from a pair of readers, and I don’t even care. Pretty soon I’ll have the pair that hangs like a necklace, and I’ll show people how cute my glasses are before I order my food at the restaurant. Can I get a senior discount? Great, thanks.

Anyway, something else I do as an old person is this: I write letters to my friend, using things like stamps and stationery. I’m told this is a “lost art.” So, I thought I’d write a few letters here, starting with my evil archenemy….

Dear AARP – Seriously? I need a restraining order from you people. The number of emails and actual mail I get from you is ridiculous. I really want to know; how did you find me? I’m not a person who will ever be able to retire. I made all the wrong life choices for that. Do you really think I want a magazine that shows pictures of retired people hiking the Himalayas or whatever? No I don’t. Call me jealous and bitter, just don’t ever actually call me. Since when is 50 the new 67? Give me a damn break. Unsubscribe me. I can’t even say please. I’m sick of you people already.

Dear Instagram- Fine, you’re right, I DO need a shingles shot. Thanks for reminding me that I should not see a movie or buy pears until I do it. Yes, I will get on it. I promise. Oh, you are reminding me again? Okay, thanks, oh, right, again?, okay, okay, OKAY.

Dear Facebook – I don’t know the people you think I know. And I don’t want to. I am barely social with a circle of about five actual people. But thanks for thinking I’m an extrovert. Please revise my settings to introvert nerd who only clicks links about books. Also, I don’t buy pants online. Especially not $100 pants that are sized small, medium, or large. Pants don’t work like that. At least not for me. Please delete all ads for pants.

Dear Police – No, I don’t want to donate any money or give any personal information over the phone. The police warned me against that. You say you are the police? I don’t believe you. I’ve been told that scammers lie. No way, not falling for it.

Dear Netflix – Yes, I’m still watching. We’ve been together since you were $7.99 per month and frankly you weren’t even that good back then. But I stuck by your side, and now that you are famous you are coming down on me for password sharing and judging me for watching more than three episodes. You should know me better. I’m kind of hurt.

Here’s what I’m reading/have read recently:

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. Guys, if you haven’t read any of Grady’s stuff, you should check it out! I finished My Best Friend’s Exorcism and now want to read everything Grady. I will tell you though, the ending is not for the squeamish. I am the CEO of The Squeamish. I read it anyway.

Earthlings by Sayak Murata This one is so interesting. And sad. Lots of trigger warnings, as follows: incest, murder, cannibalism, sexual abuse. But the writing is good and it will make you say, Wait, What???  I really love books that make you say that.

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First it Will Piss You Off by Gloria Steinem I’m not very far into this one, but it is really good so far.

Podcasts I am loving: For the Love with Jen Hatmaker, The Mel Robbins Podcast, Don’t Ask Tig, and We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle

Can I Get an Herb For That?

But first, an excerpt (hope I don’t get sued):

Now I began to experience a tendency in the West that perhaps I am too old to accept. It is the principle of do it yourself. At breakfast, a toaster is on your table. You make your own toast. When I drove into one of these gems of comfort and convenience, registered, and was shown to my comfortable room after paying in advance, of course, that was the end of any contact with the management. There were no waiters, no bell boys. The chambermaids crept in and out invisibly. If I wanted ice, there was a machine near the office. I got my own ice, my own papers. Everything was convenient, centrally located, and lonesome. I lived in the utmost luxury. Other guests came and went silently. If one confronted them with “Good evening,” they looked a little confused and then responded, “Good evening.” It seemed to me that they looked at me for a place to insert a coin.

~Travels With Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck 1962

Do you guys ever feel like we are doing these human interactions wrong? I mean, we are sort of deleting the humans, and when I ask a deleted human to help me do a thing, they get mad at me. Like John Steinbeck, I look around and think No, no, no, this is all wrong, terribly wrong. I have been operating under a theory that aliens have taken over our world by quietly replacing people. They have the same bodies but they are aliens inside. This explains why not as many people can be nice anymore. I mean, do aliens care about returning their grocery carts to the stall or throwing their trash in the bin? No. They have bigger plans. They are trying to take over the world. This theory was born at 2 a.m., so I’m not saying it’s genius or even true, but I’m just saying, what if?

For my birthday, I got a gift card for my favorite coffee shop, and when it was time to pay for my latte, I didn’t know how to use it. It used to be, you would order your thing and hand the gift card to the employee of the place. Now you scan it yourself or something. It’s the or something that was causing me problems. I had the options of putting the card in a slot, scanning a QR code, or swiping. I would have asked for help but the human was gone. I mean, she was making my drink so, yay, but still, I was weighing my options by myself. Swiping is very pre- 2018, so I ruled that out. The slot seemed wrong because there was no shiny dealio on the card (don’t judge). I opted for scanning, but that didn’t work. I was now moving this card up and down over the machine like an idiot, searching for a QR code and feeling very alone. I was happy to have the gift card, but now I was less happy because I felt dumb. I had never had a gift card from this place before, so I was essentially new to this coffee shop job.

Do you guys ever feel dumb when you go places? Scan your stuff, enter amount, make sure you put your items IN THE BAGGING AREA, insert card, DON’T REMOVE CARD, REMOVE CARD! It’s all so confrontational. In this case, I actually apologized to the person who worked at the coffee shop. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to pay with my gift card.” Why was I apologizing? Because I didn’t know how to do the job I wasn’t trained for and don’t get paid for. I mean, this is wrong, right? But I also love this coffee shop, so I don’t want to lose my shit here and hence my visitation priveleges.

At the airport, you use the kiosk to check your bags now, which is fine except for the 5-foot-long sticker that prints out from the machine. If you don’t attach this to your bag correctly, your luggage is in danger. Because I wanted my luggage to go to San Diego with me, not on a solo trip to St. Louis or something, I worked hard to get that thing on properly. When we went to the counter, we asked the person who works there to help us attach one of the stickers, because we removed part of it, and then it got stuck to itself (fuck!) and us (double fuck!). But the lady looked at us like we asked her to help us clean out our entire garage and just told us, *deep sigh* “The directions are on the back.” I wanted to tell her, “I have the flu and my brother just died, so I’m about to punch you in the throat if you don’t help us with this vital sticker because these bags contain funeral clothes you asshole.” Phew. I didn’t say it.

We recently bought chairs at Lazyboy. Those people are really nice when you are thinking about buying chairs. “Yes, you qualify for 36 months interest-free financing.” But then to get the financing, you have to apply by yourself later, away from the furniture store, at home. The website didn’t work until I tried seven times. Then it said, click here to agree to 29% interest rate. Umm, fucking what? I called the lady who sold us the chairs. Turns out, she didn’t know me anymore. She sure used my name a lot when she was initially talking to me about the chairs, but whatever. I decided to go in to the Lazyboy store again. The guy who worked there was sitting at the computer, scrolling through his phone. I told him that I couldn’t get the financing to be the as-promised interest-free on the website and asked for help. He looked at me like I was one hundred years old, and said, “Do you have a phone?” Yes… geez. I’m not crazy. I held my phone up to prove it, and he sent me a link to the website, so I could DO IT MYSELF IN FRONT OF HIM. I guess it was time for my training. I sat down, ready to learn a new job. I got all of our information into the website, and it said, not responding. I showed it to him, like, see? This whole thing is dumb. He sighed and sat at his computer. He began typing and I thought to myself, finally, someone is going to hook up the interest-free shit as promised. He then turned the computer screen towards me, handed me the keyboard, and told me to fill out the application. I heard myself say, “I guess I’ll just do your job for you then. I need the mouse.” Oops.

I’m at a dangerous age. I didn’t run that sentence through any sort of filtering system before it escaped my mouth, and that’s what worries me. I went to the doctor for my annual physical this week, and when she asked me what concerns I had, I said, “I need an herb or something because everyone is bothering me.” She was wearing a mask but I could see her eyes smiling. I continued, “Maybe I am premenopausal but I am angry at everyone and all the people are annoying. Do you have any suggestions for that? Like, I don’t want a prescription, but ya, just something herbal would be good because the common denominator here is me.” She gave me an informative essay titled something like, Menopause and You, and on the top she wrote estrovin and black cohosh, and I am certain these miracle meds will help. I’ll report back on the magic herbs that will make me like everyone more, until I myself am taken over by aliens. Unless it has already happened?

Here is a list of all the awesome books I have read so far in 2023:

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin (I laughed out loud on a plane like a crazy person, so many times)

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (This guy does dialogue better than anyone)

The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers (very interesting part of history)

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins (loved the ending)

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom (so good but of course sad. People’s capacity for love and hate is wonderful and terrible)

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy (such a sweet love story)

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty (a reread, but I love this one)

Life After Life by Raymond Moody (I think I needed some comfort around grief. Check.)

Currently reading:

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (recommended by Tommy)

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix (Are you kidding me with this guy? His stuff is so fun. I loved My Best Friend’s Exorcism)

Tribute

My brother Tim died on January 6^th, and I find myself googling his name, searching for an obituary that doesn’t yet exist. I am illogically expecting the internet to know my brother, to succinctly explain his life and, most especially, his death. It’s surreal to see Tim’s name on Legacy.com, with an end date attached. Google can’t help me understand that life is not fair. I know this to be true but I often try to forget, even though this life won’t let me forget. My brother Tom and I, my aunt and uncle, our parents: we should still have our family’s oldest son. The one who remembers all the birthdays and always sends cards. The surfer, the reader, the expert on all the things medical. I miss the boy who remembers who our mom was before the accident that she claims turned her into a “bad mother.” I was five years old when she fell at work and injured her back, but Tim was nine. Tim is the one who remembered everything. When I don’t remember how things happened, because I was too young or possibly too self-absorbed, I call him, my personal childhood historian. The fact that I can’t call him anymore feels impossible.

“Do you remember Mom ever making cookies?” I asked him a few Christmases ago. Our mom had told me that the bake aisle reminded her of “all those cookies I made when you were kids.” My memory is devoid of cookies.  So, I go to the memory keeper.

“Ya when we lived in LA she did.” I pause, trying to imagine my mom in the kitchen, baking. My brain refuses to conjure up the image, even when faced with truth.

“Like, what kind of cookies did she make?” I’m a baker, I need to know specifics.

“I don’t know, the frosted, cut-out kind. Santa Clauses and stuff. They were good.” Sometimes I feel like my brother and I had different moms. The one he remembers was a bit more… mom-ish.

People might not know that Tim was an actor on Days of Our Lives as an infant. Or that he was so calm that even as a child, he slept in on Christmas Day, knowing we’d wait for him before opening presents. Tim was the one who hoarded his Halloween candy so he could eat it in front of Tom and I in December. As a child, he had amazing self-control. My brother was also the one to call out the injustices in the family. We could count on him to speak up when things felt unfair, and to get louder when he had to. Even though he didn’t share his Halloween candy, and I never did find his hiding places, he did share his music, his love of books, advice, and so much love. To be included in his orbit was the biggest compliment to this little sister.

The world will miss a million kindnesses from my brother. He found his home in his wife Kathleen and he became a grounded, responsible adult when his daughter Leah came along. He was a parent who believed in experiences over materialistic things. He taught his daughter to surf, and planned amazing trips for his family. His wife called him her Buzz Lightyear, and he was the family dog’s favorite “boyfriend,” as his daughter jokingly calls him.

I’m having trouble with tenses. I think you understand. I told myself he wouldn’t die. I lied and I believed my lie to myself. It’s human nature to look for something to blame. It’s hard to blame cancer; it’s not like cancer is a person with free will, and even if so, what other choice could it have made but to kill all of the Tim cells? Finding no one to blame, I land on myself. Blame is a compass and I am north.  I should have called more often. Written longer messages in the birthday cards. Checked in more. Visited. Planned more trips.

I miss him so much already. I miss knowing he’s here, breathing the same air, reading books and telling me about them, sharing the planet with me. He died while I was acting like we had plenty of time. And now I am barely breathing, heartbroken. I’ve lost another pin in the very small map of my family of origin. And somehow, I feel so much smaller because of it.

Grief is a heavy weight on our house. Therapy helps. Having a therapist feels like a warm embrace. A cape, a truth serum, a gavel, a safety net, a parachute, a wetsuit, an escalator to a higher self. Even with that, there is no fix for this fog of sadness. My therapist says someday it won’t feel so heavy.

Tim, come away with me where the grass grows wild, where the winds blow free, come away with me and I’ll build you a home in the meadow. I love you brother. In the next life, there you will be, along with me, and I promise to listen to you talk about baseball into eternity.

On Writing

Back when I was a journalism major, William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well was required reading, along with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, and the AP Style Guide. I love reading books on writing while procrastinating about writing. I also love reading books and watching documentaries on healthy eating while eating Sour Skittles and frosted Pop Tarts, but that is another story.  It’s a good diversion, rather than actually sitting down and doing the hard part, suffering through plot problems and getting the work done, you can lie to yourself about being productive while reading a book. That’s the trouble with creative endeavors, you just have to sit down and do it; inspiration or not.

In the past, I’ve tried to be what Zinsser called a “citizen of writing.” (Check out his article Life and Work; theamericanscholar.org). I own and have read a lot of books on how to write. I really only recommend three: Bird by Bird; Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, On Writing; A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, and On Writing Well by Zinsser. All three are worthwhile. I have attended writer’s conferences, but I have found them to be suffocating, snobby and weirdly competitive. Conferences are a lot of talk about trends, marketing, self-publishing, agents and editors. As everyone gets more and more worked up, a quiet panic creeps over me, the kind you get when you have the worst batting average on the team and it looks like you will be taking the last-chance-to-win-the-game at-bat (personal experience, yep). Strike out: inevitable. 

I once took a class at the community college called, Write That Novel! and felt completely ridiculous about it while I did not, in fact, write that novel. I’ve joined writers’ groups with no good result except being bogged down by other people’s ideas about what I should write, and how to revise what I thought was actually just fine. Zinsser says “I do not show my writing to other writers; their agenda is not my agenda.” That succinctly sums up my writers’ group experiences. So much of it felt like talking about the writing we weren’t doing rather than actually writing. The big daddy of getting his writing done, Stephen King, says “In truth, I’ve found that any day’s routine interruptions and distractions don’t much hurt a work in progress and may actually help it in some ways. It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster’s shell that makes the pearl, not the pearl-making seminars with other oysters.” I love that. Zinsser describes himself as a “lone craftsman,” and maybe I’m like that. For Anne Lamott, “becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.” Maybe that kind of becoming conscious has to be done alone. What I like to do is meet my writer friends in coffee shops, preferably Coffee and Comics these days, drink lattes and write in each other’s company, without ever sharing our stuff or asking for critique. A sort of parallel play for writers.

What I love about writing is that it is the craft of making something out of nothing. Sometimes it sucks and sometimes it doesn’t. Jim Carrey says this about his art: “I am in control, I do it, and I’m done. And I go, Oh, something that wasn’t there. Fantastic.”  

We put so much meaning and pressure on this craft of writing. It’s funny. If you want to be a runner you put your shoes on, step out your front door, and run. Nobody tells you that you aren’t a runner yet because you aren’t on the cover of Runner’s World, you don’t make money at it, you aren’t fast enough, you haven’t run enough miles or registered for enough races, or your form is not unique enough. You are a runner because you run. For me, the same applies to writing. Blogging is fun for me because I have the constant, nagging need for an idea, a kernel, a paragraph, a motivation, a connection, a weekly post. And that is a comfortable need.

If you want motivation for writing, check out this advice written by freelancer John Scalzi.

Currently reading: The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley, Skipping Christmas by John Grisham (reread), I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet by Shauna Niequist

Two recent reads I recommend: Foe by Iain Reid and Eat, Drink, Run by Bryony Gordon (did I mention I also like to read books about running while not running)

How the Dark Parts of Me are Like the Bathroom at Barnes and Noble (I mean, go with it)

Specifically the Reno one. If you’ve been there, you know our Barnes and Noble has beautiful book displays, artistic photos of famous authors, a nice coffee shop and soothing music. They even recently remodeled and made it even more aesthetically pleasing. But the dark underbelly of the place is this: the bathrooms are terrible. There is never soap or paper towels or things like cleanliness in the bathroom. Even the stall doors don’t work right. We hate that. I still go to Barnes and Noble of course, but using the bathroom is a bit like seeing Santa Claus without his beard.

All of the dark parts of me are like this bathroom: hidden but not so pretty, and probably in need of some attention. I don’t know if comparing my brain to a bathroom would be therapist-approved. I say that because I am seeing a therapist, and she’s pretty amazing, but she likes for me to be nicer to myself. She validates all my crazy thoughts and makes me feel more normal. Plus she gives me tools to calm the inner crazy.

I’m working on honest writing that exposes the Barnes and Noble bathroom of my soul, even if the analogies don’t make sense to anyone but me. Even if people might get their feelings hurt. Or if only ten people will relate. I’m just saying, if I don’t share my B&N bathroom with the world, you all might think I am just the front of the store: the shiny part that looks good.

I feel better about saying I’m seeing a therapist rather than I’m in therapy. “Seeing a therapist” sounds more like dating and less like incarceration. Maybe it’s just me. I find our social stigma around therapy to be odd, and I guess I’m affected by this. I can get a trainer to help me make my stomach flat (I’m not doing that, nope), and decline a coffee date because, “I have to go see my trainer, it’s ab day.” But I hesitate a bit when it comes time to say, “I have therapy.” I’m more of a fan of the people who say “I have a therapy appointment, but we can hang out after. I might be a mess, just so you know.” I love the I might be a mess people. When I mention therapy, the response I get from most people is, “Where do you go? Does insurance cover it? I need to go too.” So ya, go get it if you need and are able to. My therapist is amazing. I love going so much.

These are the things my therapist and I work on:

Self-compassion: I probably mentioned I quit my job. But let me just tell you what really happened. Full disclosure B & N bathroom situation here: They put me on a PIP. You know what those are? I think it officially stands for “Hi, you suck, you have four weeks to get better or you are fired.” I will say I did not deserve that. And also that it was a gift because I wasn’t happy with that job and leaving felt very right. But having to face what felt like an extreme rejection and failure at work brought up a whole bunch of issues.  I have a very strong work ethic. Too strong actually. Like I NEVER call in sick. I will show up early and stay late. When I was a teacher, I was the “no problem, I got it, I’ll work on it this weekend” teacher (aren’t we all?). So at the corporate job, I was giving 100% and being told it wasn’t enough. Quitting was a big deal for me, because, hi, money, and also, I have realized that I define my self-worth by how I am perceived by others, by knowing I’ve done a good job, and by how much money I make.  And now I’m kind of floating, Ubering, with no real job or schedule, which is great and also kind of unsettling. Weirdly it was fine during the summer, probably because I’m used to having a few weeks off then. But when all my teacher friends went back to school I began to feel like I have no value if I am not busy AF. The funny thing is, I don’t hold my friends to these weird standards. I don’t care how you make your money. I definitely don’t care how much you get paid or what your bank balance is (unless you are Jeff Bezos and you don’t share well. I mean, come on billionaires, do better). I care if you are kind, a good listener, genuine, and if I feel better about myself after I hang out with you. Also, if we laugh our asses off together, great. My therapist recommends these people who are good at helping you explore self-compassion: Kristen Neff, Tara Brach, Brene Brown.

Other things I’m working on:

My crazy relationship with my mom: Three years ago we came out of estrangement because there was no one to buy the groceries, take out the trash, and sort the pills. The thing is, my relationship with her has always been problematic. She has been hypercritical of me since birth, which means I am expert level at being mean to myself. My mom has always felt like someone I had to protect myself from, which is sort of anti-mom but also very common I think. The problem I have is that being around her triggers a lot of resentment and anger, but I need to be around her because she needs help. My therapist posed this question to me: do you believe everyone is doing the best that they can? (This video is a very cool if you want to explore forgiveness, boundaries, compassion and kindness. What I’m talking about happens at minute 45 ish). I’m working on believing that my mom is and did do the best she could. If I believe that, it makes everything else easier, and that’s what I’m looking for. I’m tired of torturing myself. When you start thinking about this concept of doing your best, you also begin to wonder if you yourself are doing the best you can. And I don’t mean Deadpool style Maximum Effort. I mean letting yourself off the hook a little bit. What I’m able to give my mom in the relationship is the best I’ve got. Someday it might be more, but right now, this is my best. And I’m done beating my myself up over the deep conversations we never have and the amount of times I don’t call her. I will say I was not at my best when I went to the assisted living facility and confronted her with everything I was mad about, but I also forgive myself. Maybe those things needed to be said. The book that also helped me with this: Many Lives Many Masters by Brian Weiss. Whether you believe in past lives or not, the book offers some cool insight into our purpose here in this life.

Also, Mindfulness/Meditation: I tend to get way in my head and overthink things, and also, as I mentioned, the voices in my head are mean. My therapist and I gave the voice a name, and sometimes I just tell her to shut up, by name. In a nice way of course. Er, sometimes. Real quick I’ll tell you the theory of eagle vs. mouse vision. The eagle is the big picture view, and the mouse sees what is right in front of its face. The mouse is a detail-oriented, busy, busy, fidgety, fidgety little creature. You should understand that I’m a mouse. My wife is an eagle and this is the only reason I am slightly sane most of the time. This mouse pays the bills on time, so we’ve got that going for us too. Here’s an example of the level of overthinking I’m capable of: Shayne and I are in a coffee shop in Tahoe (Cuppa Tahoe, love, love, love!) and she points out a sticker she thinks I might want.

“You need that sticker,” she says. The sticker: Hold on, let me overthink this. I look at it, and I think, Where would I put it, should I get it, I already have a lot of stickers, would I want it on my water bottle or my to-go coffee cup, ooh or my laptop, maybe not, but it is cute though, how much is it? Maybe I should get it. By then, it’s over. I don’t have time, I’m holding up the line and I didn’t get it because by then the barista was asking for our drink order, and I didn’t want to slow down the line (hi, people pleasing). The little mouse in my brain is hard at work, constantly fidgeting and perseverating and What-If-ing. You know what helps that? Meditation and Mindfulness. Meditation is hard but I work on it. It helps on those nights when I can’t sleep because the mouse keeps telling me that we might end up living in a van down by the river. When I text this fear to Shayne she replied “We’d love that!” and she sent me cute pictures of vans on beaches. It definitely helps to be with someone who is an eagle if you are a little mousey. Things that are good for mindfulness: meditation, breathing exercies, Jack Kornfield, Juicebox Yoga (I’m working up to this. Obviously, I had to go in first and ask all questions and I don’t know what to wear and what do they mean when they say Bring a pillow? What kind of pillow??) It’s a process. I do know that I am doing the best I can.

My favorite audio book right now: Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile

Reading:

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Fierce, Free and Full of Fire by Jen Hatmaker

Uber Driver Confessions

All of life is an experiment. The more experiments, the better -Ralph Waldo Emerson

My latest experiment, pausing 9-5, M-F work to complete my novel, has been interesting.  This was always my dream: to be a writer, to have a house with a porch, to spend all day on the porch sipping coffee and writing. Of course, dreams and real life are a bit different. The writer life looks more like wake up, drink coffee and contemplate life while scrolling through my phone, go for a run/walk because my body doesn’t like to run anymore without lots of breaks, feed dogs, do dishes, start laundry, write for two hours, Uber for 3-4 hours, write some more or cook dinner, relax with family.

It’s nice, but I’m on a timeline here so I need to be more focused. But also, I need to stop comparing my writer life to that made-up dream in my mind. Because the people in my life need to be brought to the DMV, I need to keep up on my own appointments, and my house (or maybe I) might implode if the dishes and laundry don’t stay clean. But every day I track my writing in word count. A good day yields 800 to 1,000 words, which is pretty steady and mathematically adequate; at this rate four months will result in 80,000 words, which is a nice length for a novel.

Then there is UberEATS. That is also a very steady operation. If you say yes to every trip, you slowly, $5 to $10 at a time, build a bank of money. It’s not enough, but for now, it will buy groceries, gas, and pay a few bills. We might be uber poor (see what I did there?) by January, but I am very thankful for this chance. The catalyst for all this was me quitting a job that wasn’t really working out. Maybe I’m not a M-F, 9-5 office-worker person. What I know to be true is that I didn’t feel like I could be myself there, and after leaving I feel lighter, happier, less angry and more relaxed. Therapy is also helping.

A note on anger: possibly I have been pushing it down my whole life and now the storage center of things that make me angry is overflowing; question: is this a thing that happens when one becomes a woman of a certain age? An example: I had an issue with the doctor at the breast health center, as follows: an ultrasound revealed that the lump I found on my breast that was painful and large enough to be annoying was “just full of harmless fluid, nothing to worry about.” Now there is a lot of cancer in my family, and I was a little bit like, “How do you know it’s harmless? Please take it out with your big extracty needle thingy.” This doctor was a bit surprised. Put out even. He said, with surprise and annoyance, “Oh, you want it removed?” My head sort of wanted to explode. I pictured punching him repeatedly. I wanted to say, “Imagine there is a ping-pong ball sized lump on your balls. You essentially have a third ball now. Would you want it to be removed?” This is the kind of anger I’m talking about. The kind that makes your whole body hot. And don’t say hot flash or I will punch. Could it be menopause? Maybe and fuck off. Okay, that’s all I’ll say about anger. But visualizing punching various people led me to therapy, which has been very helpful. Five stars. I highly recommend. Now I only want to punch maybe one person. So much improvement.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Uber. It’s actually mostly fun. I should say that I am a perpetually lost person. And I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean, I can never fucking find a damn thing out in the real world. I GPS myself to coffee shops where the people inside know my order by heart. But still, I thought, “I bet I could Uber.” And it turns out I can. I have learned a few things Ubering (it’s a verb now at our house).

Lesson 1: Never miss an opportunity to go pee.  I don’t even know what else to say about this, but ya. I have actually refused trips because I can’t use the bathroom at the pick up spot. Crumbl Cookies, Crazy D’s Hot Chicken, and Nekter Juice Bar do not want this Uber driver to use the bathroom. No problem, but I’m just saying, there are times when that is not okay with me and no I don’t want to pick up there at this time. Also thank God for libraries. Charge your phone, pee, fill your water bottle, they don’t care.

Lesson 2: Stay calm. You missed the exit? There will be a next exit. You can’t find the apartment? Keep at it. It’s there. The important thing is this: don’t spill the drinks.

Okay, you know what, actually those are the only two things I know for sure right now. I will say that Ubering (verb, remember?) makes me feel connected to everything. Does everything in my life remind me of the song Guaranteed by Eddie Vedder? Yes, it does. Wind in my hair I feel part of everywhere. I really love driving around Reno/Sparks, and you know, people are very happy to see you when you have food for them. Or coffee. Overall, it’s a satisfying job. And who has a 95% satisfaction rate? This girl! I suspect that 5% was that one time I dropped a drink at the wrong apartment, but let’s not talk about that. I feel bad enough already. My therapist says I should try saying, “I love myself even though I (insert thing you fucked up here).” So…

I love myself even though I missed my exit.

I love myself even though I dropped the drink at the wrong apartment.

I love myself even though I don’t make very much money anymore.

I love myself even though I might have lost my shit at the assisted living facility because my mom was acting like a douche….. (perhaps that is a story for another day, because what am I? 12?….).

Okay, this post had no focus so let me tell you what I read recently that made me lose sleep because just…. one… more… chapter: The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James

I’m currently reading Many Lives, Many Masters, which is very interesting and kind of mind-blowing, if a thing like that can have a kind of.

Byeeeeee!