• Life Lessons,  Moody Blues,  raving lunatic rant,  spilling my guts,  word-driven-blogging

    Rallying

    rallying.

    I have been lagging so badly. I think all I do is lag. Why so much lag!!!??? I don’t know. I think I just feel overwhelmed with life and time is a concept that doesn’t make sense. Years of content go by in my head and nothing gets written. And you all wonder why there are crickets chirping on this side of the internet. Because I am overwhelmed with lag!!!  I’m still here. I’m just stuck on a lag! I can’t seem to get over it.

    rallying-2

    I have several blog posts to write. They are all swirling in my head.  My publisher has tasked me to write a link-heavy post about all the books I have written. I need to ask for reviews for them to beat the amazon algorithm. (I hate algorithms except when they work for me and then I love them.) She asked me to write it weeks ago and here I am sitting on it while I stress about not being able to pay my bills. I am shooting myself in the foot.  So that’s coming. Where my reviewers at?!

    early-matt-days

    I also need to write an epic post about my new relationship and how it’s spanned 30 years. Thirty years!!!  It’s a doozy. I don’t even think I can do it justice.  I could write a book about this love story. Maybe I should. Maybe I will someday.

    fun-with-cc

    I also need to write a post about CC coming to visit and all the fun we had visiting our old haunts. I love having family around. I miss having a big family. There’s more to that than meets the eye.

    balboa-with-cc

    I also need to write about the job I didn’t get and the huge crush to my ego that job hunting at fifty is… I think I just need to check in. I need to throw myself on the screen and see what comes out.

    I think this post will be about rallying. It’s been a theme lately.

    You know when you are low and you realize it’s not getting you anywhere? You cry and there’s snot and you blow your nose and notice that your breath is bad because all the acid in your stomach is trying to escape…and while you are noticing all these things in the present, you realize you have two options: crawl into bed, and continue this luxury of sadness and pretend not to exist while still feeling all the feelings OR find something distracting to throw yourself into and trick your brain into thinking life is still worth living.

    Wow, that sounds like depression.

    I recently finished listening to “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb. It’s sooooo good. I think I might even need to read it again because invariably I was walking and listening at the same time and sometimes I zoned out in my own thoughts or got distracted by the sunrise or a squirrel or something and I probably missed a jewel of truth.  There are so many jewels in this book! Every single chapter held so much helpful thought. I can’t rave about it enough.  Go read it now.

    Maybe rallying is a distraction, the act of covering up something deeper and darker that we are not ready to deal with. That’s fair. It’s a coping mechanism that has a side benefit of action. So many times I’ve been in a really low place and I’ve pulled out some strength from somewhere deep inside myself that I didn’t even know I had and moved my brain two inches to the right to a better place against its own will. I found my mojo there. I faked it until I made it. I found the courage to wipe away my tears and see a brighter side. It’s just keeping on keeping. Dress up, show up. All the cliches! Life is sucky. This world is sucky but it would be a shame not to hang in there for the brilliant times, the fun times, the best of times… it’s not time to give up.

    Feeling the feelings is important too. Finishing the cycle of a feeling lets you move on to the next one. So let’s feel the feels and rally. All the feels, all the rallies. Kumbaya. La la la.

    I should note that while I’ve had some big sad feelings lately, I’ve also had some really big happy feelings. That’s life, right? I hope you are feeling all the big feelings too.

  • corona virus 2020,  crazy stuff,  party party,  rando bits,  raving lunatic rant

    cheers to your health

    thedayigotsick.

    Life was careening along at such a hopping pace and then Ka-bammo! I got covid. It’s sort of funny that the day I took the above photo was the day I started to feel sick. It was just a sore throat in the morning which is really common for me because I like to sleep with the window open and I often wake up with a slight sore throat. I usually don’t worry about it and it wears off by noon. Not that day. It wasn’t bad but by the afternoon I started to feel achy and tired. I probably infected a bunch of people and didn’t even know it. (I’m sorry!)

    vintage-shopping

    That was the day we went to Long Beach and shopped a bunch of vintage stores looking for “fabulous” costumery to wear to my party. Actually, I already have a fabulous outfit for myself (of course!) but I thought I’d stuff one of my vintage suitcases with some whacky clothes for party guests to wear if they needed to zhuzh up their outfits. You know, just in case they aren’t fabulous enough already. Just me being me going over the top as usual.

    We found a bunch of treasures and had so much fun until I started to feel sick. I actually didn’t buy any of the above except the light blue tuxedo shirt on the bottom and then when I started to feel feverish on the drive home I wore it and it was super soft and comfortable.

    When I got home I went straight to bed. I was worried.

    The next day I took a test and yep. Covid. I guess all the cool kids are getting it now. (Yes, that’s a joke.) I felt pretty crappy for about two days and slept as much as I could. Then on the third day, I started to feel better. Not too shabby! Is that because covid isn’t very strong anymore or is it because I’m vaccinated? We’ll never know.

    I think the hardest part was forcing myself to stay in quarantine when I felt fine. Nothing new here. People have been doing this for two years straight! I did get a lot of desk work done which was nice… but I missed going outside. We have a community laundromat so that meant no laundry was getting done for a while.

    Then on day seven (this morning!) I tested negative!! Yay!

    clubhouse-1

    Feeling all chipper and excited to get out, I walked my masked self down to our apartment complex clubhouse to check out the party site to make final arrangements. Nothing is going as planned.  What did I expect? The woman I reserved the room with wasn’t there and her boss was instead and guess what? There are a lot of rules I wasn’t informed about when I made the first reservation.

    The first new rule: closing time. I have to make sure we are out of the room by 10 pm sharp, and that means out and cleaned up by 10 with a security guard locking up. That’s gonna be challenging. Sorry folks! Time to get out and take a plate with you on your way out. After party in my tiny apartment with white carpet? Eeek! I guess we’ll see how that goes. The invitations are already out and sent so I can’t really change the location now.

    The second new rule: no alcohol outside of the clubhouse. This does not really work well with my margarita truck idea or that open-air covid-free patio meandering I was hoping for. I mean how are you going to get your drink from the truck to the clubhouse? Drive the truck into the clubhouse??  I spoke to the margarita truck guy (my client) and apparently, this happens all the time so they will serve drinks inside the clubhouse. But what’s the fun in that?? The truck is just for looks?

    Phooey.

    Anyway, I’m sure it will be fine. I’m just slightly annoyed. I guess there are bigger things to worry about, like women’s rights going backwards in time. Sigh.

    Cheers to your health!