1. I accidentally deleted “Big Break Greenbriar” episodes before watching them. I have no idea if the guy whose mouth doesn’t move when he speaks won or not. I kinda hope not.
2. No. I don’t play golf. But I like to watch it on television sometimes. It’s just so soothing. Especially if you don’t understand it.
3. I don’t understand it.
4. My financial picture is… not as agreed. Like, not at ALL.
5. I’m not sure why this doesn’t worry me MORE than it does. But I figure it’ll all be fine. Eventually.
6. I got a precious little minimum wage retail type job I just adore. I’ve never worked in retail. I have much to learn. And the people there are NICE. Like, ALL of them. It’s only a few exits away from the kids’ school and they are more than happy to work around my schedule so that I’m only working when I don’t have the kids.
7. Why is it so surprising to meet NICE people? Why do I expect everyone to be awful? I need to adjust this.
8. New favorite food: brussel sprouts. LOVE them. Mom makes them. I experimented with the frozen kind and WOW but that was nasty.
9. Remember when I was going to paint my bedroom pink? I changed my mind. I painted the bathroom pink. (yes. in a rent house. without asking. the bathroom that has dark sage green tile everywhere.) And I got another color for the bedroom and didn’t ever try it out until today, and SURPRISE, apparently I was in a lavender mood that day. but that’s okay. It’s on the periwinkle side of lavender. But…. interesting. I like it. I think.
10. the paint store people almost kind of know me and are NICE. they want to talk about family and business and dogs and paint and schools and weather.
11. have either lost 7 pounds, or my scale is messing with me.
12. according to my fat jeans, it’s my scale messing with me.
13. which is mean, because i’m working out all a lot again and that’s just not right.
14. i have lettuce cravings. A lot. it didn’t start until i stopped being a vegetarian. WEIRD, right?
15. if you have lettuce cravings, which you indulge, you should totally lose 7 pounds. But i didn’t.
16. sitting in a depressed, staring, motionless state for months on end is apparently quite fattening.
18. i have this AMAZING book in my head that would really like to be written. but i don’t have the mental energy for character development or OH MY GOSH, thinking up other people’s imaginary emotions and conflicts. UGH. too caught up in my own real ones still.
20. It was a gorgeous day. It’s a sweet life I’m so grateful to live. I don’t want to waste any of it on bitterness or anxiety. Some days that’s far more realistic than others. All days, it’s a worthy perspective.
21. Did that sound all profound and philosophical? Let me translate.
22. Last night a friend sent a text saying she’d gone to a divorce support group. And it was depressing because she listened to everyone’s stories and no one’s were as awful as hers and mine.
23. We laughed at this until it hurt today at lunch. We like to discuss our current divorce stress and then laugh about it and pray about it and cry about it and then laugh about it some more and maybe swear about it… but mainly we laugh. It’s a coping mechanism against bitterness.
24. Yes. I was eating lettuce.
25. You can’t drag me to a support group like that. OH MY GOSH. I get nervous just thinking about it. Which was probably why I was not even invited.
27. And then I laughed. Because i knew it was going to be funny.
29. I’m not criticizing such groups. I apologize.
30. No wait. i think i am. But I’m sure there’s good stuff that goes on there. It’s just that the thought of it gives me hives but i’m sure it’s great for other people. who are not me. yes. that’s what i meant.
32. apart from that, i’m like, really good at this job.
33. no i’m not. i’m just trying to be positive. but that was just dishonest. more truthful: i’m totally hardworking and teachable and glad for the opportunity and will convincingly fake smile at humans when required.
34. hopefully, without lettuce in my teeth.
After the last creepy attempted drug buy on the front porch, I finally called the non emergency police line and had a chat with a guy named Wes. He said they’d put the house on “a watch” for a month.
I figured I better email the landlord. It’s his house. And so I did. Not exactly expecting anything. And only a ‘hey… here’s what’s been going on, everything’s fine, but this is the current status of the No Drugs Here program…” sort of brief little thingy.
It was 10pm. He called immediately and was QUITE upset.
Apparently this guy KNOWS the previous tenants slash drug dealers and has known them for more than 10 years. His entire family knows this guy’s entire family. He was FLOORED. And he processed it all in a verbal, shocked, emotional, detailed way on the phone, for like FOREVER. I nodded. Uhh huhhhed. Hmmm, really-ed? And every once in awhile he’d stop and apologize and say that when he kept saying he didn’t believe it, he wasn’t saying he didn’t believe ME – he did – he just couldn’t quite get his head around this. And on. And on. And then he’d say that part again about explaining his incredulity.
He told me to please tell my boys that he would do everything he could to fix this and to make this the safe home they deserved. He said he had to go so he could call the police friend guy.
I did NOT cry weird shocked grateful tears until well after I hung up.
Um…? That woulda been creepy from anyone else at any other time I suppose. But I wasn’t quite convinced. Maybe he just said all of that but wasn’t really a follow through type. That might make more sense.
But the camera appeared one day while I was gone, and warning type security stickers, and there was a definite increase in weird creepy types doing drive bys and then it slowed down. And no more knocking on the door.
The kids are more relaxed.
It’s like the whole big constant threat thing just got taken care of. And I didn’t have to do a thing.
i was already strategizing the things I WOULD obviously have to consider: workout changes, focusing on strength and punching; gun research, classes, target practice etc; pepper spray; recording of dogs that bark since my dogs DON’T….
I may still do some of that. I did change my exercise stuff, but not because there was the same urgency to get tougher than the bad guys. That one particular stress, that ONE particular problem I didn’t realize was taking up so much of my energy… gone. Solved.
I just… don’t even understand. Sometimes I’ll just keep writing and before I’m done, I’ve sort of figured it out WITH you. That’s what it feels like to me, anyway. It’s not happening this time. I can’t even explain really what’s so confusing. It just is.
I’ll stop writing, anyway. Just wanted to update you.
All is well in the security department. Also. I’m confused.
UGH. I just can’t end it like that. Here let me distract you from my unresolved issues with a weird dream snippet. don’t you LOVE when people go on and on about their dreams and it made total sense to them and it’s just like, um, not the same at all for you? Right. Let’s do that.
This morning I woke up LAUGHING. I could only remember the end of a dream where Bert (of bert and ernie, the yellow one) was saying, “THAT’S THE LAST OF THE POTATOES, *ITCHES!” It was SHOCKING. And so funny. And I have no idea what it was about, but I somehow knew he was referring to whole potatoes, skin on, and not mashed. Just imagine Bert swearing in his sesame street bert-voice. OH MY GOSH, it was funny.