Rewrite of a different kind

Family is a tricky thing. What you grew up with as normal might freak out others you come across. What you tried to hide as embarrassing family shenanigans might be ho-hum for others.

What may be more to the point for this post is that explaining your family can be a tricky thing. How do you explain why your dad calls your oldest cousin 'Apple Juice Fitzhibbert' instead of Alan, followed swiftly by everyone of that generation repeating on cue "So say we all"? This is not a true story from my family, but is as random as the collections of both you-had-to-be-there and it-evolved-over-time family stories that many of us don't even realize we have. Most of our family stories involve fart/poop jokes or injuries, so I aimed for an example that might seem more wholesome. *cough*

I've had my share of relaying family history and stories. All of my siblings are married and have children, so there's been plenty of rehashing of us. My poor husband asks on a weekly basis WTF the reason my parents do or say something is.

He's got no room to talk though.

Recently family history has taken a turn off the paved road, shall we say. New relatives, people kept hidden one or two generations back, have appeared on our radar thanks to the modern marvel of DNA testing. Exact relationships are still being figured out because, we think, those involved are deceased. But initially it looks like a pretty close, family altering, match. On my husband's side. A family history that has been difficult to piece together at times - perhaps we now know why.

I'm in the position now of trying to explain a family's history. What do you start with? Do you stagger info, saving the potentially less ideal for the future? Do you lay it all out from the beginning, warts and all?  I mean the "new" relative is already quite aware somebody in the biological mix kept a secret.

Secondly, how do you address this with the family who is still alive but was not aware of what happened? How do you go about having to rewrite their history?

Time Sucks

As usual, I have thoughts on a simple, easy to put together blog post to try to keep this limping along. And then I sit down. Brain stops working.

In my defense this time, there's a lot going on in my house. I've taken in a not-so-new-to-us member, a nibling in need of some guidance, boundaries and a lot of support and love. It's been a hell of a roller coaster, let me tell you. Instant parent, just add teenager with a sense of entitlement.

Things are in a tentative lull - which is great because I'm exhaustipated (too tired to give a shit)- after a series of emotional upheavals to kick things off. Seizing the moment, I took a little me-time this afternoon once I finished my daily dose of melting in the summer heat.

She went to the store in June, too.

At a snail's pace, I've made my way around various streaming music services. Way, way, far behind the rest of the curve. I'm not too keen on paying a monthly premium to listen to music, but I LOVE music of so many varieties, I can't help but love being able to access just about anything I can think of without having to own it first.

So I signed up for a 3 month trial of a new-to-me service. I've liked all the ones I've tried for different reasons. Some are really great at learning what I like. Some have superior user interfaces. Some are so-so, but their free content/stations are pretty impressive. Whatever the setup, I'm a playlist fiend. Music to keep me moving. Music when I'm annoyed. Music for any and every kind of writing I might attempt. Music from my childhood. Soundtracks that blew me away. All rock. All sugary sweet pop. Alternative angst to make my husband proud.

My deepest time suck - music.

I'm looking forward to the ridiculous time I'll waste cultivating playlists that I may or may not ever use again after the trial is up.

Home Again

There and back again. Damned if Tolkien didn't come up with perhaps the best vacation summary ever.

So, I survived a heck of a road trip, two weeks of sites and highways and blurred loss of time. Come hell or high water... or suicidal animals and brisk crosswinds, everyone who left returned home. We covered an impressive (according to everyone whose mouth drops as we keep listing the places we stopped at) 10 states not including those we drove through without having a scheduled activity. More than 6,000 miles.

Did anyone check to see if the Misty Mountain pass was closed for bad weather?!

And nearly the same number of photographs taken. If I'm being honest, the photos surpassed the miles driven.

Which brings me to one of my current situations, aside from the first quarter of the trip mashing together in one, continuous vague memory of driving and hotel stops: sorting through pictures.

We visited some amazing natural formations and prehistoric remains of animals an ancient peoples, literally taking our breath away at spots. (Ruling out altitude sickness and asthma of course.) So we took a heaping shit ton of pictures. More to the point, my husband did. I'll safely round down my photographic contribution to at or below 1,000 pics. As if that's any less mind-numbing to sort through.

Because sorting through them, trying to whittle down the volume to an easier to share set that highlights our best of the trip? Holy shitballs, people! It's going to take a bit of time. And an IV of caffeine. And maybe a few alcoholic beverages near the end. Perhaps a cheesecake.

Which makes me wonder: would the Lord of the Rings trilogy been easier to read if instead of describing each tree in each forest, there just would have been a snapshot included on occasion?

They walked for months, then shit happened, then they walked more.

Hair Cares

I got my hair cut today.

I know there are people who flip out at the thought of more than just a trim - but I'm so very much not one of them. Short of shaving my hair totally off (something that certainly appeals to me some days), I've tried just about every length. I'm always game to try something different.

Don't get me wrong, I dread going. I feel as out of place as possible in a salon - a place devoted to style and beauty. But a few times a year I suck it up and go in. Because as much as I feel like a giant neon sign points me out as a misfit while I'm there, every haircut feels like a mini-revolution to me. A temporary reinvention.

I've had stylists want my husband's approval before cutting off hair from MY head. I've had stylists who were kind, who were not, who put me down just to sell me products to 'fix' my defects. Now I go to a very sweet woman in a zen-themed place who cannot remember my name if her life depended on it despite being typed on a piece of paper she pulls out for each appointment. But she's always kind and has never made me feel like I'm a sore thumb.

By the time I leave, having dodged the low-grade sales pitches and push for scheduling haircuts for the next 3 years of my life, I feel like any other person who walks out of a salon and plays with their hair (or the lack of it) with a stupid grin on my face. And I know in a day or two that will fade as I'm confronted with the reality that there's no way in hell I can come close to recreating the style she gave me at home. Even then I'll still enjoy the change, my own personal mini rebellion, and scold myself for putting off going for so long.

Traveling Writers

It's a bit of an exciting time in our little writer's group. Everyone's made travel plans for various destinations (Europe! Islands! Massive Road Trip!) for the coming months. 

In true writer fashion, we all have different travel techniques. Pantser - very little planned, take each travel day as it comes. Planner - Every.single.detail.under.review. And of course, the fence-sitter of them all - the hybrid. A mix of planning and go with the flow, having a decent framework to depend on and running amok around it. 

Whether it's writing or planning a trip, when I get bogged down in details or when I'm struggling to work out a logistical issue, I've found it really helps me to go off-screen. Pen to paper, having pages to move around and scribble on helps me when I just can't figure something out. 

Doing this made my trip possible, despite of/in addition to plenty of well meaning travel apps. I broke down and tried it out when I just couldn't figure out an important plot point writing-wise recently as well. A nerve-wracking conversation (man, I still feel like an idiot discussing anything I'm writing with anyone) followed by a quick dissection of the problem, pertinent info and a piece of paper and voila - a workable bit of something to get back into the sandbox with. 

A prat's fall

It was only a matter of time before it happened.

Almost 6 months after breaking my foot, I slipped. Healing foot smashed into wall, scar side out naturally. I landed with remarkable luck by going down on my other knee and staying upright from the thighs up. My husband heard this go down and called out to check what the noise - something falling from a shelf he thought - was. It took me a minute to answer because after the initial "Oooph", I was slowly taking stock of what hurt, putting off wiggling my foot and toes with dread.

In the end, everything's more or less fine. Took me a little longer to get up than I'd like because I didn't want to put too much (more) stress on the foot.

A week on, yeah, it's a little pissy. The area around the scar is tender to the touch like it hadn't been for more than a month. The rest of my foot bristles when I'm up on it for a while.

I have to admit, I'd been bracing for what happens when my natural klutz instincts kicked in following my foot injury. The idea of being out of commission once more, of another break, has made me wary.

But it happened. And I survived. I might need to go back to icing my foot and using my walking boot off and on for a bit, but sigh of relief, it's okay.

April Blogging

It's April - time for all sorts of non-nerd things I'm sure, but in recent years it means the options of Camp NaNo and Blogging A-Z open up.

Meh.

I'd already decided on no more Camp NaNo last year and the idea of the blog challenge this year isn't doing a whole lot in the way of motivating me. I have considered trying a daily blog prompt (regardless of month) without the A to Z theme, but as with so many things at the moment, I just haven't gotten around to it.

I haven't had a whole lot in the way of blog posts lately, as I've begun to feel repetitive. Complaining about stress. Family wackiness. Writing highs and lows. I've been wondering if this repetitive thought process (aside from probably indicating my lack of imagination and a probable brain dysfunction) isn't going to work for a blog. Or is this sort of part of the low-key blogging realm? I'm not trying to build a brand. I'm not reviewing products for free crap, internet fame or kickbacks. I don't hashtag the ever loving snotweazels out of everything I post. Maybe not agonizing over original content and thousands of hits and discussing the same kind of stuff month in and month out happens in most non-commercial blogs.

With a lack of info - and a lack of motivation to skim other blogs - I've pondered shuttering the blog. I've kept it going a bit longer than I expected if I'm being honest. Then again I've noticed that despite the recent drought, I still think about it, still mull over potential posts and most of all, I still haven't shut it down.