Pay the Toll

There is a price to be paid in my house for when I'm happy or I've done something for myself. Because it really pisses off my mother, the person who embodies cutting off anything you enjoy as a form of self-punishment. Or for shits and giggles. Who can really say?

It's taken a long time for me to figure out I do the same damn thing and try to stem the eruptions of guilt that occur when I take 5 minutes to myself once in a while.

And if you think I'm exaggerating or being over-dramatic, the person writing this had to have a psychological professional tell my parents to stop smothering me by requiring my presence in their lives constantly as a teenager. I think they took my teenage leave-me-the-fuck-alone-to-read-or-talk-to-friends as a sign they'd failed to make their home a better one than they'd had growing up. No, just teenage introverting and hard crushing over guys I'd never date, but thanks for making it about you.

Which is sort of the root of the matter with my mother. My life has been melted down to the basic idea that she should be the center of my life. This exists both internal and external of her mental illness, and so I've decided at this point it's really just an issue that exists within her as a person and not specifically because she happens to have a serious mental illness. Sort of moving it into the category of "regular" passive aggressive mothers everywhere. Just spicier.

So when I have friends? She's jealous. When I leave the house? I'm partying on a yacht instead of sweating my ass off lugging groceries into the back of a vehicle in 100% humidity in the blazing sun. When I leave the house to see friends? Guaranteed meltdown. And yesterday was no different. Uncaring hussy that I was, I didn't go out just once yesterday. Oh no. 3 times, once just one-on-one with my husband for an errand, I had the audacity to get in my car and enjoy myself. Nerdy word play, filthy jokes and all. She'd have a stroke if she knew I had a donut with my coffee. Because where was hers?!

And I refused to engage in the reindeer games when I returned.

She announced that she'd been having trouble for days with her mind, but hadn't wanted to tell us. I know my mother's tells. She was bullshitting me. But calmly, I played along and asked for details. After cutting back the underbrush of word games (her favorite way to stall for more ideas) and just plain moose caca, her explanation amounted to whenever I left the house, she got confused and so I shouldn't leave the house anymore without her. As long as she's with me, she doesn't have any trouble.

This is the woman who when she's been committed to psychiatric wards ends up running the asylum by the time she's allowed to leave. She's fucking brilliant at manipulation. One issue she has with me is I know her. Even at her most cunning, she's got patterns. She's got tells. Tells that are on full display when she's up to something. At least to me.

I listened to everything she had to say, asked if she was having trouble sleeping and sent her to bed. Today she has followed me around every inch of the house whenever I'm not in my bedroom or the bathroom. She sat and stared at me for at least 30 minutes as I was at my desk . A little later, she spent an hour in the next room putting a puzzle together and making random comments every 20 minutes.

As always when discussing situations with my mother, I get that she's ill. I get that she's declining. And I get, as I have my entire life, that some of goes on is completely and totally out of her control. Some days are just wilder rides than others.

Dreams & Nightmares of the Creative Persuasion

It has been creativity boom town in my brain for the last few weeks. Vivid dreams that inspire new story ideas, random character inspirations throughout the day, puzzling out the beginnings of an idea and ending up with a complete outline in a matter of hours (at 3 AM no less). I have been frantically outlining, jotting down notes on just about every piece of applicable technology or in my new journal at all hours. Sleep is either super amazing or nonexistent because my brain just won't shut off.

Such is the life of a writer. At least my version.

Yesterday I had a lightning moment over a character I needed to write about and the story was then provided courtesy a dream I had over night. The droughts are a bitch in creativity, but the monsoon season is just freaking glorious.

So while I eyeball my coffee supply and check the charge on my laptop, I have to admit that in this rainy, feast season there are pitfalls and nightmares. And I'm not talking about the kind that I'd work into a story.

Hell.no.

One night last week, I went to bed super tired and ready for unconsciousness to claim me. My 2,000 mental browser tabs minimized without complaint. But then the curtains pulled back and the show began.

"Pssst."

No. Not now.

"Pssst. Hey. Just for a minute. Till you drift off..."

That's what you always say and then we're here til dawn.

"Just till you fall asleep. It's happened before..."

Okay, fine. But you'd better not have a trick up your sleeve. 

You know how this ends, right? At some point well after midnight (goodbye any semblance of sleep), I drug my butt out of bed, fired up my outlining software and proceeded to type up as much of the story breakthrough - complete with dialogue - I could.

This, aside from the horrors of sleep deprivation, is not the nightmare.

No, the nightmare came when I went back several days later only to find about half of what I'd typed up gone. Poof. Most likely because of an issue with the auto-sync feature on my desktop. The good news is I still know the basics of what's missing from an outline perspective. The irritating part is realizing that late night brain-dumping session has to be redone.

There are worse nightmares creative-type people can suffer. It's not like I lost 25 pages of pure writing magic that I can never recreate. Or a whole document. Not this time at least. And it's not like I stumbled across something I wrote 10, 15 or 20 years ago and feel compelled to see how it looks now. *shudders*

If you'll excuse me, I have that new story outline to write up, the old outline to revisit and fix, and then my current WIP to get back to.

Organizational Experiment

Organization, the sustainable kind, is not one of my qualities. I'm good at organizing someone else's chaos and creating a workable system for them. But when it comes to daily life, I'm damn good at eventually wrecking whatever I've set up. I can't tell you how often my debit card doesn't make it in the slot it belongs in my wallet and the frantic rooting through my entire purse because I couldn't be bothered to take a split second and put it in place.

I'm a chronic case. Some of it *cough* is just who I am. And some of it is the product of taking care of other scatterbrained or disinterested people. And by disinterested, I mean they don't want to do it & can't be bothered with it. By default, that leaves me.

Oh, poop!

A while back, I swapped out a pocket calendar for my phone's built in calendar app to keep track of appointments and my daily gratitudes. None of the productivity apps I looked through seemed to offer something that would work any better for my purposes. Recently, the social media corkboard site full of millions of good ideas few people ever actually tackle has been suggesting I check out something called a bullet journal. It also suggests I check out ballet slippers, weird recipes, credit cards, a hundred thousand words to use beside "said" and something called spoon ornaments. Given the wonky algorithm making these suggestions, I didn't give any thought to the journal thing.

I didn't give it another thought until I was talking with someone who happens to be a neuropsychologist. She brought up the bullet journal and talked about how functional it is and why. I was fascinated. And a little annoyed. I don't like to jump on bandwagons, and according to the number of ads I see for these things, they're everywhere. And according to the web search results I got when I decided to look into how to journal the bullet way, there is no end to the vlogs from people explaining theirs and what nifty things they keep track of. Skin care routines (seriously?), meal planning, vlog ideas, blog ideas, appointments, bills, so on and so forth.

There is seemingly no end to all the ways people utilize these things. And seemingly no end to the setup involved.

Since my time is strained enough as it is, I'm going simple and direct and starting with the basics. Day to day, monthly, & future plans. I'm trying to keep track of when I have to pay my parents' bills, refill prescriptions, schedule writing time, keep track of doctor visits & medical stuff, etc. My skin care routine hasn't varied in about 20 years, so I think I'm good there. If I stick to it and see the use in adding more frivolous things to keep track of then I'll do so.

And I'll check in on here about it from time to time. Because surely reading about somebody else trying an organizational method with data migration in an analog manner must be worthy of a blog post.

Amen.

Do you go gently into that gray night?

Hair. It's one of the few personal vanities I indulged in.

I was not blessed with the cultural standards of beauty for my country. No delicate elfin bone structure for me. No, sir. I'm made up from sturdier stock. My Mediterranean heritage, the one I so strongly identified with growing up, is less Sofia Loren, more angry fish wife. The rest of me is made up of the kind of people who are designed to survive in a cold climate and subsist on potatoes, cabbage and the odd bit of meat. In short, I'm full on peasant stock no matter what side I look at.

The apron says party but the face says shrew. I like it.

So I loved my hair. The color, the Rapunzel thickness, how fast it grew out after unforgiving haircuts. The fact that my hair is thinning because of a medical condition is a sore spot for me.

The thing I've been silently watching for has finally come to pass. A bumper crop of silvery gray strands have appeared, on New Year's Day no less.

Because I'm a research nut, I looked up the average age a woman starts to go gray. Did you know that among other factors, the natural color if your hair is a factor? Apparently with my dark tresses, I was due about 4 years ago. And considering some of my siblings went gray in college, I'm kind of pleased I got a bit of a reprieve.

But here I am. Light glittering on the top of my head like I'm a walking mirror ball. And it begs the question: to color or not to color? Do I want to try the confidant, natural look? Or do I want to buy out the nearest store of every root touch up kit they have?

How vain am I about to get as I kiss my beloved natural color adieu? I suppose at this stage it boils down to how wacky the gray comes in. And maybe this is the perfect time to put in those blue or rainbow highlights I've always wanted.

Calendars and 2016 Musings

One of the last things I do at the end of the year is go calendar shopping. Or, depending on how late I'm running or how much of a discount I'm itching to get, sometimes it's one of the first things I do in a new year. I'm flexible. Regardless, it's calendar season at my house. That time of year when you crawl over hordes of people crammed into the smallest area a bookstore could think to put up the display or, for the adventurous types, when you avoid eye contact with the sometimes shifty-looking employees of the pop-up calendar & toy store at the local mall.

He doesn't know why you can buy a board game and matching calendar either.

For the person of a thousand and one interests *cough* like me, calendar shopping can be a little much. Is this the year I get landscapes of any one of the countries I adore? Something funny instead? OMG-look-at-all-the-cute-puppies!!! Something literary and witty? BUNNIES! Dark and spooky? Choice overload. The last few years I've opted for zen and/or positive quotes with equally soothing (or whatever) simple images. I'm not sure they did much for me, so maybe it's time to go a little madcap and silly.

And speaking of the year coming to a close...

I don't necessarily think 2016 has been the worst year. But for many people I know, it's certainly been a dark and difficult year. We've had a tribulation or two here as well. And the seemingly endless culling of so many public figures took a toll on hope and spirits everywhere. It started with a roundhouse kick to the head and ended that way, too. From David Bowie & Alan Rickman all the way through to George Michael, Carrie Fisher & Debbie Reynolds. I stopped being able to articulate what some of these people meant to me, what their careers or their activism inspired and encouraged, before the second quarter of the year. With this (hopefully last round) starting at Christmas, I was quite ill and too sick to register the full impact of their passings.

With all that in mind, I present what 2016 was for me personally.

2016 is the year:

• I got annual passes to the mouse's house. Childhood dream unlocked.
• My cousin came to visit and I made my grandpa's sauce recipe.
• My friends and I explored new activities and places. 
• My dog died.
• My husband was officially diagnosed with autism.
• I avoided being hospitalized by sheer stubbornness.
• I became a trusted confidant in my oldest nibling's life. 
• I learned something new about how to treat my PCOS that almost 20 years of doctors never mentioned before. 
• I went to a funeral for a friend for the first time.
• I finally got my ass back to the doctor after putting it off for too long. 
• I learned how to unclog a garbage disposal on my own.
• I learned how to make salisbury steaks, soups, couscous & more.
• I caught up on classic literature I missed in high school & college. 
• I began refreshing my foreign language skills & inspired my dad to do the same.
• I survived. Every thing I stressed over, every moment I wasn't sure I could handle, every time I thought I might break in the year, I made it through. I've laughed and cried with family and friends. I had food in my pantry and on my table. A roof over my head, hurricane or shine. I have memories of those who are no longer here. For every worry or moment of uncertainty, there is hope.

Happy New Year to you & yours!

Dear Santa

My youngest nibling asks me every year if I've written my letter to Santa. In the spirit of needing to wear off this espresso buzz embracing the relief of skidding to the holiday finish line a skosh early, I thought I'd give it a whirl. I may be a little rusty; it has been *cough* a few decades since I've made the attempt.

Dear Santa,

The End.

I don't remember writing to you being so difficult. Should there be an exchange of pleasantries? Ask after the family and business? Or as this is a request out of millions, should I put the urgency on your limited time and get straight to business?

Out of respect to you: Happy Holidays, hope all is well and safe travels. On to business.

And that takes care of the required adult generalized worry list.

Here's the nitty gritty:

• Time to finish reading any one of the three library books I've been working on for the last month & change. 
• To be rid of whatever bubonic plague gremlins trying to root in my sinuses that one of my niblings infected me with this week. You know the one. Adjust his gifts accordingly. Like adding hand soap, sanitizer and face masks to his stocking. Or coal.
• Genealogy records to break through long-standing brick walls.
• Carrie Fisher surviving & making a full recovery. Seriously, 2016 has done enough. 

Oh. And uh, just one more thing.

Or at least tried.

My home is starting to feel like there's room for 1 more little 4-legged furry, wet nosed hound dog. I still intensely miss the one who left us this year and am grateful our remaining sweetheart who sidestepped a cancer scare. But our pack is 1 short. Maybe you could keep an eye out on your flight tonight for the right fit.

Now that I've thought about it:

• Either the cure for cancer (human & canine) or the right inspirational gift for the child who can figure it out.

🎄🎄🎅🎅🎄🎄

From my home to yours, I hope this holiday season is one of peace and joy.

Gifting

Disclaimer: This is post, very obviously, is a first world problem kind of thing. With that in mind, we proceed.

I love finding the right gift for people. I'd love it a whole lot more if I had several million in disposable income, but you get the idea.

Can I get an Amen?

But I love gift giving. The agonizing over options is my own personal over-analyzing sweet spot.

What I suck at, very much something that's developed over the last few years, is giving people ideas for me. My lists used to be littered with books and.. well, mostly books. A few odds and ends here and there, but usually books rounded out the bulk of it. And despite my main gift givers being hardcore readers, they resisted.

My increasing age has added to my sense of being pragmatic. I'm at the age where unless it's from a tried and true favorite author of mine, I'll test drive it from the library first (whenever possible). My office, bedroom and bookshelves have stacks of books I touched long enough to bring home from the store. I struggle to find time and focus to read library books as it is and at least they have a time limit involved to push things along.

Beyond books, I'm practical about jewelry. Sure, I like sparkly things but I have a reaction to silver and anything with nickel. That price tag just went through the roof on anything I'd be interested in. And frankly, I wear the same earrings and same necklace every day anyway - simple, practical pieces. I'm always in a rush and if I don't just leave it all on from one day to the next, I'd never remember to even wear my wedding band.

Note to self - check for pants and shoes before leaving house.

As for all the rest?

I want a genealogy and organizational fairy godmother. *Poof* Family pictures and documents scanned, organized and preserved in a neat space with back up stored off site. *Poof* Here's the missing records you've needed to tracing down another 5 generations. *Poof* Family history stories recorded for posterity. *Poof* *Poof* *Nose twitch* 1890 Census restored. (American genealogy joke & desperate wish - most of it was destroyed in a fire).

I also want a $300 USB typewriter-style keyboard. But I don't understand when Christmas gifts had to be hundreds of dollars a piece and stocking stuffers are the price I like to average on regular gifts. Those of you buying $25-$50 & up stocking stuffers are throwing the whole thing out of whack. So I don't ask for a $300 USB typewriter-style keyboard because that's more than I'd budget for my own entire Christmas gift experience, gifts under the tree and stocking.

So aside from an expansion pack to my favorite (filthy) card game and a gift subscription to something genealogy based, I'm good this year. I don't have kiddos to watch and enjoy the holiday experience. (Another something I'd like but isn't an option.) I have older folks who will open slippers and undershirts and the like. I have a husband who reads this blog, so my lips are sealed on any further comment there.

Am I upset about the state of my potential personal gift receiving experience? Nope. My husband's not pleased but I'm good.

The hubby will roll his eyes at this. Guaranteed.