#uncoffeed...

Sometimes I know exactly what's real, and it terrifies me. I've been up since dawn's early crack, having followed my own advice and having been asleep since n *PM last night. Asleep is a relative term - these days it means that several times I woke up enough to tell Netflix yes, I was still watching, and roll over again. I blame years of shift work for being unable to relax in a dark and silent room. My brain is too loud without external noise to mitigate it. I'm rarely awake to see the sun come up, but it's one of my favorite things. I turn off the TV and listen to the birds.  Ideally I have coffee and go back to bed, but today is a work-day, a heavy one. I'm going to try and tell you what my panic attack is like. I use the familiar term, but it doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. My work-space faces a window that looks out into the woods across the landlords' back patio. I can see the rooftop of the house over the hill, and I know that b...

Man, what a day for etymology. I really liked this one - thanks, Linda  and Paul. If you have read more than two of my posts, you know that #equality is a huge topic for me. I was raised by my momma to know that all people are equal in value. We have a baseline of not-despicable and our worth is what we make it from there. Let me go off on a tangent before addressing the connotations of words. It's likely that I feel strongly about #equality because I was taught to accept each person as a person, and then I went to kindergarten. Kindergartners can be horrible people. I was mocked for my clothes, for not being able to read, for speaking my mind. I quickly learned how to read, because I could control that. I couldn't choose my own clothes and I couldn't shut up. Still can't. My bestie in Kindergarten came from a Baptist family, and my parents were Catholic. This meant that on any weekend I could go to church up to 5 times, depending how we chose to arrange our...

I'm in a funny place these days, mentally. Physically, maybe, since Annandale is fascinating. But mentally I'm in  uncharted territory. I have lived a lot of lives - I count ten. I've surpassed Cat Status.  Having been divorced and living in my Tiny Cottage for just over a year now, I am feeling something new: comfortable in my own skin. Comfortable with the ramifications of whatever comes out of my mouth, because I am certain that when the  words came out I meant them. Comfortable with completely changing tack if the origin of my words no longer suits the situation. I can learn. There is nobody else but me, and I am still afloat. I am unrepentant. I didn't do this by myself. I have the support of people who believe in me when they have no reason to believe, other than they see me from outside of me.  They see my efforts and failures, and they never question whether I am going to get back up. Sometimes I wasn't sure I'd get back up, but people whose persp...

Yesterday was a really big day for me, with lots of love in my direction.  For starters, it was the first day of a new year in my tiny Annandale cottage. I moved here after studying the Art Of War as it applied to an amicable divorce. I made careful calculations, but I still wasn't sure what I was getting myself into - only what I was getting myself out of. And I nailed it, or at least I'm still afloat. We had King Cake  at work, and I got the baby.  I didn't find the baby; the baby was presenting himself, emerging from the cake like a c-section and not really hiding at all.  But I got the baby because nobody else was as excited by a Gold Baby Jesus in a King Cake as I was.  Also I received an email from Joe Maita of Jerry Jazz Musicia n. My very short story was the first-ever winner of the Jerry Jazz fiction contest in 2002. When I submitted for contest 47, he wrote to ask if I were the same Deb Ewing. How freaking awesome is it to be remembered? I tell ...