#uncoffeed...

My friend Diana has multiple disabilities and, like any of us, has good days and bad days. Unlike many of us, her bad days are slowly getting worse and her good days are starting to have further distance between them.  On the long graph, her health is unlikely to improve. As I separate myself from the life I had with my second husband, nice but toxic on many levels, I am slowly getting better. My health, my attitude, my productivity...someone complimented me because he suddenly finds me bordering the realm of Attractive. I'm not impressed, but it's worth mention this time - today I am not wearing makeup nor did I make any effort to be presentable. Dood finally nailed it: I look happy. I am happy. Diana is happy, too, but she is not getting better. We share many interests and have deep conversations, not often enough. Diana sometimes doesn't feel up to it, or so I assume - I ask how she's feeling today ; she says she feels fine. I could believe I'm imagining ...

Longtime long distance friend Linda Fields posted on Facebook recently: Did you ever wonder whose feet you had on when you bought the shoes you thought fit?  It turns out she was talking literally about shoes. But that wasn't how I read it, and yeah I have, Linda. In allegorical shoes, I really have.  There was that time in middle school when I wrote an erotic fiction book on lined paper and with a pencil; it was passed around the class until my best friend got hold of it. She said she put it in the dog pen and "let the dogs dukey all over it, because that's all it was good for." I wonder if anybody remembers that. I need to realize I can really write a whole book. There was the time I moved to four different states and had three babies with a guy who told me we were like "John and Yoko" - we didn't mean to start a family, but we can rock this, yeah? Turns out he meant I would do the family part and he would do the rock part. There was the t...

I attended an AA meeting once in the early 80s, having hitch-hiked to Daytona Beach with the guy who would later become the father of all my children. Laden with sleeping-bag rolls , we were  befriended by people who live on the beach. They immediately showed us the ropes: you can attend the Meeting and get some free donuts and coffee. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. There will be lots of coffee. You will need it to stay awake during the 3 hours you aren't allowed to be on the beach. It isn't recommended for newbies to try and congregate under the bridge where the regulars go - folks are territorial. So those who don't have territory stay awake and wander the city for 3 hours. We ended up making another friend - a guy on a Harley chopper who let us stay at his apartment overnight. I had about 8 minutes of terror standing on a corner at midnight, waiting to see if this guy came back after taking away my friend; he did. The guy let us ...

I've gone around the block and come to an undeniable truth: public opinion matters.  What your friends think about you, your life, your mate, should be noted. What you do with this information is not so cut-and-dried  (that's a farming term, if you didn't  know.)  Plan on continuing the discussion. Public opinion matters because our American society is a complex amalgam , no matter how badly certain people don't want to see it that way.  You can use the metaphor macadam if the other reminds you of uncomfortable dental visits, but I sort of like the idea that there's an element blended into the mix which is unhealthy, like mercury.  Macadam may be more accurate in describing America, as it's a collection of disparate objects which have settled and compressed into one collective substance which is comprised of individuals but becomes another entity in toto.   Y tú también. And that's my point here:  Public opinion of you helps you det...

Our accountant is a wonderful, naturally supportive person. My empathic sensors (and logic) tell me that she has her own set of problems but she doesn’t let them get the best of her. She asks me regularly whether I plan to ride my bike to work on Friday.  She shares pictures of her grandson and tells me about her quilting group. Last week, my Project Get Over Myself project was bringing some of my paintings into the office and letting people see them; now I’m flagged (read: outed) as a painter. She sent me a link to a fine arts festival happening over the weekend. As usual, I have two points I have to digest. I dislike the bins people put me in, and I dislike art fairs. I have to get over my knee-jerk when people stick a pin in me that has a label attached; it’s not as serious as all that for them, and it also means they find me interesting and are trying to connect. The thing I want the most is the thing that scares me the most. Accountant is awesome because she does n...

Boundaries as a term is bordering on being the new catchprase, clickbait even.  You read it here first, kids.  However, the concept is crucial for healthy living. Let's get ahead of the curve and set some now, before hipsterdom catches the wave. Realise that you have them.  You always have had them; your first set was probably handed to you by adults you trusted as a child.  This may or may not be problematic: the boundaries you were given may be inappropriate for you or you may have outgrown them. I'll give a personal example: I was taught that I should sit down, and if somebody wants me to have something they will give it to me. At some point, somebody who'd been handed different boundaries laughed at me and said, "If you want something, you have to ask for it," and was amazed that I didn't know this.  Now we arrive at the next rule.  Do not weigh or judge the boundaries of others . It may be best to start thinking of boundaries as an invisib...

...so I've been crying, quietly or not, for at least 20 minutes now, which is no big deal because it's what girls do, right? Why is that, exactly? Why do guys not do it? Does crying make me girly? Go ahead and cry, guys. I give you permission. It makes me human. It makes me hurt and unresolved. I seriously dislike lack of resolution - this is why I watch detective stories. There's a neat wrap-up at the end. Also, it is a big deal. It's a big deal when anybody hurts enough, for whatever reason, to sit and cry alone in a room. When you do it, give yourself a hug and also a pat on the back for allowing yourself to feel. You don't need to suck it up. You need to listen to your body , and do what you need to do. In all things. I feel like I have a hole and it's the source of the crying - a void with raw edges that I manage to patch up on most days, so that nothing falls into it and nothing leaks out. It has a voice and it wants something I can't identify...