these are things that I think about

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The other day I noticed that my box of cotton swabs has some kind of strange and confusing imagery on it.

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I get the keyboard one, for sure. Cotton swabs are super good for cleaning the accumulated finger-filth and manky crusties off keyboards and from around the keys themselves. Although, having said that, I now fear slightly that I’ve given you the impression that my computer keyboard is a cesspool of smeg and horror. It’s not, I promise. Well, except for that one time when my husband dropped a sandwich HP-sauce-side-down on our laptop and we had super sticky keys for a month despite many wipe-downs and I eventually ended up prying the keys off and cleaning under them with the point of a very sharp knife in order to restore functionality and reduce overall grossness. Other than that my keyboards are all maintained to an acceptable level of hygiene, I assure you.

ANYWAY.

The baby one, I kind of vaguely understand as well…although the scale is messed up so it totally looks like someone drying a baby’s head off with a GIGANTIC cotton-wrapped wand. Or maybe it’s not a baby at all, maybe it’s a doll and they’re cleaning it? I don’t know, whatever. Point is, I can see how cotton swabs might come in handy with regard to tiny human maintenance. In theory. Having seen the size of mess most babies can make themselves with bodily functions in literally a split second, I think cotton swab manufacturers might be overplaying this angle somewhat.

The eye thing is a definite yes comprehension-wise for me. Fully half of the cotton swabs that enter my home end up getting used to fix or remove eye make-up. Cotton swabs and coconut oil have saved me from many an embarrassing eyeliner smudge.

I think the middle one on the bottom row there is maybe supposed to be a suggestion that you use your cotton swabs to apply glue? Or paint, maybe? I’m pretty crafty but not so much in either the gluing-shit-together sense or the applying-paint-to-shit sense, so I’m just kind of spit-balling here. Those two options seem more feasible than my original thought, anyway…which was “that looks like a tube of hemorrhoid cream. Would someone really be so grossed out by their own ass that they’d refuse to apply medication to it without using an implement like a cotton swab?”  Because, you know, that’s something a totally normal and sane person thinks about on a Thursday morning while getting ready for work.

Ahem.

The one that truly boggles me though, is the bathtub faucet one. What is this trying to say? Do they think I should be cleaning my grout with cotton swabs, or be so meticulous about cleaning my faucet that I use cotton swabs to…I don’t know, clean it? Because, no. NEVER going to happen. That’s what chemicals are for. And, if I made more money, cleaning ladies.

Are you the clean-the-grout-with-cotton-swab type, or do you just ram them in your ears until they make your toes curl and you maybe cough a little, like everyone else?

bad brain days

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It’s difficult to explain a bad brain day to a non-depressed person. They usually want to know what went wrong, what caused you to have a bad day. The thing is, I can’t usually answer that question.

I mean, yes…some days go to shit for very specific reasons that you can point directly to. And lots of days just kind of bob along in that nebulous area between “ok” and “not ok”.

But when you’re dealing with depression there are also these days that are just…bad. The things you normally get done with no problem become an epic struggle. Stuff that usually amuses you or cheers you up just serves to remind you of how fucking miserable you are. It could be perfect weather, your spouse could make you the best breakfast, you could have the most traffic-free commute to work while all your favorite songs played on the radio…and the day would still be shit, because your brain just isn’t cooperating.

Hence, bad brain day.

Today was one of those days for me.  I woke up in a fine mood, had a nice breakfast with my husband and my dog, got ready for work, and everything was copacetic. I was fine for about the first hour of work and then it just hit me out of nowhere.

First I was annoyed by someone not responding to an email in a timely fashion. Which, that seems semi-reasonable at first glance but the degree of my annoyance was WAY disproportionate to the importance of the issue the email dealt with. Like, if emails were gambling and I was mad about losing money, I was in the “I just lost $200” range when really the email was only worth about $5.75. Which made more sense in my head, but whatever.

Then I started berating myself for being mad about the email, followed swiftly by berating myself for berating myself (I KNOW…welcome to my world). Within minutes things had snowballed to the point where I was hiding in the bathroom because I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

What was I actually crying about? Existing, basically. That’s about as close as I can come to an honest explanation. It’s not even that I don’t WANT to exist. I do! I like existing! BEING ALIVE IS RAD! It’s just that sometimes it hurts simply to exist, let alone actually get anything done or have any kind of meaningful interactions with the world.

On days like this about the best I can do is let myself have a crying jag or two (or ten, ugh), try to get on with what needs doing afterward, and hope that tomorrow my brain gets back with the program.

How do YOU describe your bad brain days, your down days, your hide-in-the-bathroom-at-work days to others? Do you have some kind of code word or phrase you use to clue your loved ones in to the fact that you’re in a bad place? Talk to me, Goose.

Err…Geese, I guess, since there’s more than one of you…

This Plant May Have It Out For Me

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Two weeks ago I was carrying my African violet from the living room into the kitchen for its weekly watering when gravity suddenly and inevitably betrayed me.

The plant was already a little lopsided from a couple of previous encounters with my dog and my husband (they both say “accidents”, but I’m not so sure). The lopsidedness combined with the fact that I was only using one hand to carry the pot balanced in its saucer, plus my general overall lack of coordination, was too much to account for and gravity was like “you know what? No. You need to learn a lesson. Now your favorite plant is root-ball up on the floor and there’s dirt everywhere. How’s THAT for a lesson? Don’t you feel smarter now? You should. YOU’RE WELCOME”…

…which is a long-winded way of saying that the plant fell on the floor. And also that I may have issues with anthropomorphizing natural phenomena. Among other things.

Anyway.

So the plant landed on its side and it broke a whole bunch of leaves. I ended up cutting at least a third of the leaves off because they were just going to die at that point anyway. I figured I’d probably lose the few flowers that the plant had recently set buds for, and I was fairly convinced that I might in fact lose the whole plant seeing as how African violets are supposed to be so picky and intolerant to trauma. Turns out I was wrong about the flowers, because the violet bloomed a few days later. Huzzah!

Then yesterday, I was moving the violet out of the way (MUCH MORE CAREFULLY…see, gravity? I DO learn!) on the kitchen counter when I noticed that not only was the little bastard still blooming but it had in fact grown a whole bunch of new leaves and set a crapload of new flower buds!

I can’t decide if the plant is a masochist that thrives on abuse, or if it has decided it’s sick of us weird pink two-legged monsters trying to kill it all the time so it’s beefing up to try and end us.

Either way, I feel a little bit weird around it now.

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I fail at picture-taking you can’t really see the proliferation of new buds and leaves. So basically this photo is completely pointless. LIKE LIFE.

PS: I DID try to warn you yesterday that I might start writing about my houseplants. I’m just saying. No refunds.

Brain Weasel Fight Club Practice…uhh…Club

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I really like making people laugh. That moment when someone goes from just politely listening to actually laughing, their whole face lights up and for a short time they radiate waves of happiness. In turn, my brain sucks up that radiating happiness like a sponge. It’s like something inside of me throws the doors wide open and is all “HELLO GOOD FEELS, I HAVE BEEN EAGERLY AWAITING YOU. PLEASE COME IN, I HAVE PREPARED REFRESHMENTS”, and it just feels really, really good.

Maybe that makes me a psychic vampire or something? I don’t know. I’ve been called worse, I guess.

Anyway.

The thing about depression is that it lies. Not just once in a while, but constantly. Even on my good days, it’s still there. It’s either just not lying as loudly as on the bad days, or maybe my inner Lying Cat is awake and reminding me of what the depression is doing.

sagalyingcat

Lying Cat is a character in the graphic novel series “Saga” written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Fiona Staples. It’s really, REALLY good and you should read it.

This often makes it quite difficult to trust that what I think is funny in my head will a) come out as funny when I say or type it, and b) that the audience I’m addressing will see it as funny. Comedy is subjective, after all. One woman’s Ferris Bueller is another woman’s…Wolf Blitzer.

Or something.

You know what I mean.

So basically, I spend a lot of time with a blank page in front of me, berating myself for not writing anything on it because nothing is ever good enough. This is completely fucking counterproductive, because the only way to get better at a thing is to PRACTICE. Every day that I let this blank page intimidate me into slinking off into non-writing land is an opportunity to practice that I’m losing out on.

And granted, some days  I just…can’t. Either I’m busy or I’m just truly lacking the spoons to string words together meaningfully…whatever. Shit happens. You wouldn’t try to practice playing the clarinet if you had bronchitis and couldn’t breathe well (I’m assuming. I’ve never actually played the clarinet. CLARINETS, HOW DO THEY WORK?!), and I’m not going to try to practice writing on days when it feels like my fucking brain is dissolving and getting ready to leak out my ears. But I feel like maybe I need to start making myself practice even when I don’t feel exactly “on”, when I don’t have a funny story in the chamber all ready to fire…and yes, even when my brain is trying to tell me that nobody wants to read a single word I could possibly type in this space.

Because honestly, it’s not just writing practice. It’s fight practice. It’s shadow-boxing with the smaller, more docile brain weasels so that I’m a little better prepared when those big sweaty Ivan Drago type brain weasels inevitably roll up wanting to pummel me and steal my lunch money.

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My husband will be so proud I remembered a character’s name from one of the terrible movies he’s made me watch!

So bear with me if I start posting boring shit about like, my house plants, the weather, or my obsession with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It can’t be all cookie licking and floor poops all of the time, y’know?

party pooper

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I usually take my mom out for breakfast on Mother’s Day. Most of the local diners and restaurants around here run Mother’s Day specials and are usually super busy because of it. Neither my mom nor I are big fans of loud, busy places with lots of people, so I figured I’d scout around and find somewhere less populated to take her this year. There’s a very pretty little seasonal place not terribly far from where we live – they do local produce, farm to table, all that hippie jazz that I love. I saw a post on the local ListServ that they’d be open for Mother’s Day brunch this year so I pitched it to mom. She liked the idea so I made us a reservation and we spent the next week or so talking about what we might order when we got there (because that’s what we do. We’re menu-holics).

We got to the place and were apparently the first party of the day because there were no other cars around. We were greeted at the door and led to our table by a young woman with very impressive calves – the kind of calves that made me want to ask her what kind of exercises she does. I’m pretty sure she could have cracked walnuts with her calves, is what I’m saying. They were serious business calves.

Anyway.

We sat down at our little table and admired the decor: barn-board floors, funky little pieces of art hung on the walls, wee little green glass vases with two bright yellow daffodils in them at each table. The room we were in had windows along two sides and the third side had French doors that opened out onto a lovely little terrace. We finally tore our eyes away from the rolling sweep of acres of lush green field outside and starter perusing the menu (which, let’s be honest, we already has memorized). Ms. Impressive Calves led another party in and sat them at a table across the room…and that’s when I saw it.

There, not four feet away from us on the tastefully patterned area rug…

…was a dog turd.

I actually did a double-take because I literally didn’t believe what I was seeing. The idea that there was a dog turd on the floor next to us in this fancy restaurant was so preposterous that for about fifteen seconds I fully believed that I was, in fact, hallucinating. I looked across at my mom, who was blithely nattering on about the virtues of sangria versus mimosas. Feeling the weight of my stare, she looked up at me and raised her eyebrows.

“What?”

I leaned in and whispered:

“There’s shit on the rug.”

She glanced at the rug directly next to her and shook her head slightly.

“Whaaaat? I don’t see anything.”

“It’s right there, LOOK. It’s definitely a dog turd.”  I pointed urgently with the corner of my menu, down at the aisle between my seat and the table in the center of the room. She leaned over a little and looked again.

“Ohhh my godddd…” she hissed, her eyes widening as she looked back at me. We both started giggling hysterically.

“What do we DO? Do we say something? I don’t think we should say anything. Oh my god, how embarrassing…”, I wheezed between fits of giggling.

“We HAVE to tell them. What if someone steps in it?!”

Just then our server rounded the corner. A tall, broad and solidly built woman with high cheekbones, a snub nose and smiling eyes, she looked for all the world like she could have been my cousin. She had an assortment of interesting tattoos on her arms and wore chunky Dansko clogs.  She asked for my drink order and to my horror, all I could picture was her stepping back a couple inches and landing her heel in the dog turd. I looked back down at the menu and stuttered that I’d like a sangria. My mom ordered the same and then, just as cool as a cucumber, she leaned in toward the server and dropped her voice a bit.

“Hon, does someone around here have a small dog?”

The server looked slightly perplexed.

“Yes, the owners do. Why? Oh no, are you allergic?”  Her eyes went wide. My mom smiled charmingly.

“Oh no, not allergic. But, ummm…”  She used her menu to gesture at the floor behind the server. The server tilted her head, clearly thinking my mom was daft as fuck, only to then turn around and see the petite ordure perilously close to her shoe.

“Ohmygod NO. Oh, I’m so, SO sorry. I’ll get that taken care of right away.”

Mom and I both assured her repeatedly as she picked up the poop and spot-cleaned the carpet that it was totally not a big deal to us, that we both had small dogs ourselves and had seen our fair share of poop, etc. The server was clearly mortified but our continued commiserations seemed to settle her, and by the time our entrees came out she was able to laugh about it with us. She insisted that she comp us a dessert despite our protestations (not that we sent the flourless chocolate cake back to the kitchen once it showed up, mind you), and when she brought our check she said she’d comped one of our drinks as well. She really didn’t have to do that – the laughs we got were well worth the price of admission in our opinion.

Needless to say, it was a Mother’s Day that at least the three of us won’t be forgetting any time soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rituals (and consequences)

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There are certain things that must be done. Rituals, if you will. Certain things have their places, certain activities have a specific order they’re best done in, and some steps on the way to a destination are non-negotiable.

For instance, I have a bedtime routine that involves checking the bed for spiders.

Part of it stems from the fact that I intensely dislike being personally near spiders. Notice I don’t say “I hate spiders”, because I don’t. I totally respect spiders’ places in the ecosystem and I admire their innate engineering instincts.

I just don’t want the creep little fuckers to touch me. Ever.

So, when I go to bed at night, one of my rituals is to check the bed for spiders. I flip the blankets and top sheet off the bed, I shake the pillows, I shake the blankets and sheet, then I put it all back together again. If my husband has already gotten into bed, I’m ok with assuming he’s already gone through this process for me. If I’m the first one to bed, though…everything gets shaken.

The other night, after having gone through the whole shake-and-make process and kind of laughing at myself the whole time, I pulled out my notebook to scribble down my thoughts about it so that I could remember to blog about it later on. The note went something like this:

“Must shake out pillows and blankets before getting into bed because spiders. Problem could be solved by just making bed in morning but what if the spiders get into the bed while I’m gone to work? Better to leave bed unmade then thoroughly check for spiders whilst making it right before getting into it. Fresh bed is safe bed.”

Then, because I realized just how incredibly bonkers it looked having been committed to paper, I actually wrote the following postscript:

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Yes Internet, I know I spelled Hughes wrong. It was late and dark and I’m nuts. Don’t judge.

Satisfied that I had effectively put things into context for anyone who might come across my notebook in the case of my untimely demise, I then put the notebook away, picked up my Kindle…

…and felt a disconcerting tickle on my left arm. Glancing down was like a slow motion horror movie and confirmed what I already instinctively knew:

SPIDER. ON. MY. ARM.

Making a sound somewhere between a steam whistle and a bagpipe, I flung my arm away from my body as though it wasn’t connected and I could somehow fling it and the spider riding on it across the room if I just put enough effort into it. The Kindle went flying, the dog jumped up and started barking, and somewhere along the way I managed to partially squash the spider.

Yes, sorry spider-lovers…a spider WAS harmed in the making of this story. It probably had a thousand creepy 8-legged babies before I killed it though, and they’ll probably all come to avenge its death some night when I least expect it (OH GOD NEVER SLEEPING AGAIN, JESUS FUCK).

After several seconds of hyperventilating I managed to regain control of my faculties and go back to reading my Kindle, but I’ve been rethinking my spider-checking ritual ever since. I mean, clearly either I wasn’t vigilant enough in my shake-and-make routine, or we’ve got some kind of special breed of ninja spiders of doom living in our apartment.

I bet they came in on the grapes.

SHIT.

 

a twitter rant

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Do you ever get a notification from Twitter that someone new has followed you, click through to their profile to check them out and just end up thinking to yourself, “what about my profile and/or tweets could have possibly led you to the conclusion that you would like to read more of what I have to say”?

One guy that followed me the other day has a profile full of tweets with links to articles about crystal healing, for instance.

Another person looked perfectly reasonable until four tweets in when they started talking about how they support Ted Cruz…in a completely non-ironic way.

There was one who was just wall to wall misogynistic body-judgement jokes.

And one who did nothing but promote a Kickstarter campaign that, when clicked through to, was one of the most poorly written things I’ve seen in months. I don’t even actually know what the person was trying to raise money for. That’s how fucking badly their campaign information was written.

Here I am tweeting about anxiety and depression, dumb shit I say to my dog, pictures of the stuff that I make, and derpy jokes about nerdy stuff, and somehow that screams “Hey world, I want to hear about how you think women who don’t fit your ideal of physical perfection are worthless! I’m also super into hearing how you think a pro-life Tea Party crackpot who wants to outsource all our jobs is a reasonable choice for President! You know what I could really use right now? A CHAKRA CLEANSING. Also, I have $10,000 just burning a hole in my pocket, so please send me your completely unintelligible requests for financial backing and I’ll hook you right up.”

I prefer my chakras slightly soiled. It helps me stay grounded when Rodney Yee is trying to kill me via yoga DVDs.

 

 

 

 

yay, I figured out a thing

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I finally figured out how to get my favorite blogs to actually show up as links in the sidebar. HUZZAH! It’s only been, like…a pretty embarrassing amount of months. In my defense, it’s not like WordPress makes it especially evident or anything. It’s kind of hidden under three or four layers of internet WTF’ery.

Anyway.

So, yeah. I enjoy the blogs I’ve linked to off to the right there, and I suggest you give them a look.

FYI, if you comment on my posts I always click through to your blog to check it out. If you’re a non-commenting lurker but you have a blog you want me to check out, let me know! I don’t bite, I promise. I’m more afraid of you than you are of me. Also, I should not be exposed to bright light, fed or gotten wet after midnight. Just…in case…

 

WTF is a Liebster Award?

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Hey, I got nominated for an award! Now I can claim to be an award-winning author, right?!

Yeeeaaaahhh. Maybe not.

The “award” I was nominate for is called the Liebster Award. I was nominated by StigmaSayWhat. The Liebster Award is basically a blog version of a networking dinner. Someone links to you and asks you to link back to them plus a few other blogs, theoretically increasing exposure for all involved. Which is cool, I have nothing against potentially increasing my audience…hence my participating.

So, let’s fucking DO THIS.

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This may become relevant later on.

According to StigmaSayWhat, there are Rules, and I should post these Rules. So here they are:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you

2. Answer the 11 questions the blogger gives you

3. Nominate bloggers who you think are deserving of the award but more importantly promote newer bloggers who have fewer followers

4. Tell the blogger/s you nominated them

5. Give them 11 questions of your own

Thanks, StigmaSayWhat for nominating me. That takes care of number one.

Now here’s the list of questions I was given, with my answers following:

  1. What made you start blogging?  I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety for many years and breaking down the stigma attached to mental health issues is deeply important to me. I spent a long fucking time pretending I was OK, pretending I was normal, and all that got me was more screwed up in the head. When I started to acknowledge that I wasn’t “normal” (and that perhaps there really IS no such thing as normal), it became easier to stop blaming myself for the way my brain works. I want so much to help other people find ways to accept themselves and I feel like telling my story honestly and with humor is the best chance I have of doing that.
  2. How has blogging made a difference to your life? It has helped me get back some of the creativity I thought I’d lost as I grew up. It has also given me more confidence to just be myself and not revert back to pretending to be “normal” in order to fit in.
  3. What inspires you on a daily basis?  Funny stuff my husband and dog do. Funny things I see on Twitter and Instagram. People like The Bloggess who are not only brilliantly funny but also incredibly brave in their willingness to be dead honest and completely vulnerable. Also, dinosaurs. OMG, and squirrels! Annnnd giraffes. Ok, I’m done. I think…
  4. What is your favourite food?  Sooo, this may actually be the hardest question to answer, because I love, love, love to cook and to eat and to try food from different cultures. If I had to pick just one super perfect, never-get-sick-of-it, acid-reflux-be-damned food though…it would be pizza.
  5. Who do you aspire to be like? Probably my Nana. She’s super smart, she’s fiercely independent even at 81 years old, and she basically just does what she wants and gives no fucks whether or not anyone likes it. She’s also ridiculously generous.
  6. Why do you want to continue blogging? For all the same reasons I listed in questions 1 and 2, I guess. Plus, who’s going to stop me?
  7. What is your favourite tv show? I have an unholy love for Antiques Roadshow. I’m also obsessed with nature shows and nerdy documentaries – basically anything where I can learn something. I also loved Downton Abbey because the Dowager Countess was my spirit animal.
  8. What kind of music do you like? My musical tastes are pretty varied. I like everything from blues and bluegrass to classic rock, hip-hop, dodgy 90’s dance music, funk, techno, metal, classical…basically the only kind of music I really DON’T like is crazy speed-metal stuff. It makes me nervous. Also, I abhor the song Kokomo by the Beach Boys.
  9. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Probably right here, honestly. I still live in the town I grew up in and I really like this area a lot. Second option would probably be the Pacific Northwest. Somewhere where it doesn’t get super hot, basically. I don’t do hot.
  10. What kind of animal do you think you’re most like?  A SQUIRREL, DUH. Or a dinosaur. Were there dinosaur squirrels? I could definitely see myself as a dino-squirrel. Proto-squirrel? Whatever. You know what I mean.
  11. What gives you courage? Seeing other people be brave.

 

Now I’m supposed to nominate some other blogs to promote. I’m going to nominate Woolen Diversions (a blog is full of super awesome knitting goodness), and Shove It In My Piehole (a fun and thoughtful food blog), both of which are run by friends of mine and both of which I enjoy immensely. You should definitely visit both of them!

And now, the fun part: I get to make up eleven questions for my nominees to answer! I’ll warn you in advance, these are very me-style questions, not thoughtful / meaningful ones. I kind of figure, if you want to drive traffic to someone’s blog, why not ask them really silly things so that people will click through to see what they answered, you know? Also, anyone reading this that would like to answer these questions in the comments or on their own blogs, please feel free!

So, here goes:

  1. If you had to pick between doing Tom Hiddleston’s laundry or washing Johnny Depp’s windows, which would you choose and why? You’re not getting paid (in cash OR favors…ifyouknowwhatimean andithinkthatyoudo) for either, by the way.
  2. You’re going to be stuck on a desert island for two weeks. What three albums do you take with you for entertainment?
  3. Petite lap giraffe or tame house-trained squirrel?
  4. What is the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow?
  5. You’re having a dinner party and you can only invite Muppets. Which three Muppets would you invite and why?
  6. Which is worse, underwear that constantly ride up or underwear that constantly fall down?
  7. Gin: abomination, or tasty when mixed with the right ingredients?
  8. Who would you pick to hang out with for six hours if your life literally depended on having to pick one: Ted Cruz or Donald Trump?
  9. What’s your favorite dinosaur?
  10. What would your life story be titled?
  11. Would you rather win a million dollars or discover that you had some hidden talent that you were truly amazing at?

 

Jesus, this turned into a fucking novella. If you’re still here at this point, A+ and extra bonus reader points to you. Also, penis. Why? Because I can randomly say penis if I want.

 

that’s better

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Well, sort of. I found a theme that’s a little more to my liking, at least.

Do you ever do that? Make a snap decision and then find yourself wallowing in regret over it for days?

I am often paralyzed by indecision. When there isn’t a very clear black-or-white, right-or-wrong, smart-or-stupid answer, I go into analysis paralysis mode. The only way to break out of that mode is to finally just say fuck it and pick SOMETHING. Even though I know that 99% of the time the decisions I make aren’t going to have truly life-altering consequences, I still find it super hard to be OK with choosing “incorrectly”. I put that in quotes because really, unless you’re choosing to like, step out in front of a speeding bus or eat gas station sushi or something like that, you’re probably still going to have a chance to go back and try again if the decision you made didn’t have the desired outcome.

Or something. I don’t fucking know, it’s 9:30 on a Saturday and I got like five hours of sleep and haven’t had any coffee yet. Talk about poor decision-making…

Anyway. Tell me what you think of the new page set-up.