After vacation in one of my fave places with some of my fave peeps, after two weeks of turning down my worry and turning up some calm, I’m figuring some things out about the puzzle that is my life. (And in case you’re wondering, yes I’m well aware of everything that is “wrong” with me and everything that I could and should do better, thanks. 😬🤦♀️) Still, I feel no closer to solving my puzzle right now, despite understanding things a bit differently and maybe even a bit more. Understanding alone won’t get me where I want to be…though it does give me a sense of progress and direction at times, I suppose.
So there’s that.
Technically, to finish a puzzle, you need all the pieces. But what if there are pieces are missing? Can you ever finish a 5,000-piece puzzle if there are only 4,999 pieces in the box? Does it matter when you discover that all the pieces aren’t there?
What I’m coming to realize is that it doesn’t matter. You can get the gist of the big picture before you finish whether you have all of the pieces or not—which gets me thinking about what’s good enough and about shades of gray, about what matters substantively and what doesn’t. Sometimes we get ourselves tangled up in absolutes and expectations, and unless you’re a modern-day Houdini you’re unlikely to free yourself from that kind of strangulating, suffocating entanglement.
As such, for me this leaves three choices: 1) I can focus on whether I have all of the pieces (or not) and spend (waste?) my precious time counting and recounting them; 2) I can keep working on the puzzle, forget about whether I have all the pieces or not, and just enjoy the process and progress wherever it leaves me; or 3) I can move on from the puzzle altogether and focus my attention on something else.
Anyhow, that’s a little look-see into my frame of mind as I share these Thursday Thoughts with you, to give you some context…maybe it will help me make a little sense to you…and maybe it won’t. But here come the thoughts just the same:
Today is Leap Day, and I’m glad it only happens once every four years, because I loathe it. It’s the day when my dad learned he had a cancer that had an insurmountable head start on him. Therefore, Leap Day being a quadrennial event is frequent enough for me—not something I care to dwell on.
Speaking of cancer, though, I recently learned about a friend’s husband who had a recent surprise of a diagnosis and is in for a fight. (By surprise I mean young-ish, healthy, no major symptoms or risk factors—but as things are going of late, cancer seems more of a given than a surprise.) We’ve also got some extended family and fringe friends suffering some unimaginable battles against this dread f-cking disease too, so our hearts are heavy for them. Long story short, check yourself, listen to your body, think of my dad, think of people you love and who love you, and use this bonus day to schedule whatever you’ve been putting off.
More on cancer (and really, f-ck cancer!), I guess I know what I’ll be wearing today. This story is so far beyond sad but if you believe in any hereafter, you likely also believe that Stacy has been reunited with Tim, and there’s comfort in that. When the news of her death (of pancreatic cancer) broke yesterday, less than five months after he died (of brain cancer), I was shook to the core. Saddened for their two kids. Reminded that it all can turn on a dime. And well aware that this is a wake-up call and thus I’m committed to not hitting the snooze button any longer.
Speaking of deaths, I was shocked to learn yesterday that Richard Lewis died. If you’d have asked me over breakfast to bet my life savings on “dead?” or “alive?” I’d have been broke right now. I was *sure* he was dead. (Whoops.)
As much as I hate Leap Day, I do try to honor my dad’s spirit by taking advantage of and truly relishing these bonus 1,440 minutes—which this year means taking off later for a weekend in Chicago, where the temps dropped by some 40+° yesterday. 🤦♀️ I think there will be enough warm love of old friends and alcohol to offset the plummeting temps. Mother Nature can’t stop me from a good time.
As I ready to head out, I fully realize that in my life there’s more road in the rearview than out of the windshield…BUT there’s still plenty of road out there. In some places I want to pump the brakes, but at the same time I realize that there’s a time and place to hit the gas…things to do, places to go, people to see. Yeah, I have to crack the code of my own life, but still, plenty of opportunity exists. I mean—surely I haven’t lived all this life and learned all these lessons for nothing. Right? (RIGHT?) (RIGHT?!?!!!???!?) It goes by fast, and it keeps going so I can enjoy the ride or stand and watch it all pass by. I felt that when I stood and watched this train go by I home I was out walking the other day. All aboard.
Speaking of my walks, I don’t know the people who live in this house (and I’ve shared a pic of this sign before), but shout out and thanks to the them for keeping this up. I needed it Tuesday when I saw it, to remind me that I do in fact have the ability to realize at least some of the opportunity available to me.
Every now and then, something triggers a reminder of that great late-1970s/early 1980s show Eight is Enough…and successfully naming all eight of the Bradford children inevitably leaves me feeling quite accomplished. I did this yesterday and it gave me a boost—memory rock solid, top of my game. 😂 (If you’re a person of a certain era, give it a try.)
Oh…Alabama…there’s nothing sweet about you right now…the skies might be so blue, but your Supreme Court has me seeing red. Frozen embryos, children? The Supreme Court in AL is like a Supreme Pizza at Pizza Hut—disgusting. “Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.” That’s what the Chief Justice wrote in his opinion. Say what? Separation of church and state? In AL the two are woven together into a repulsive and repugnant tapestry of hatred and oppression. Who TF elects these people? (Though the fact that they get elected should scare the living sh-t out of you.)
Speaking of Supreme Courts, well, THE Supreme Court has some justices who seem like a real sneaky bunch of hypocritical racist, sexist, homophobic mofos to me. It’s not just a woman’s right to choose that should worry us. Gay marriage is at risk. The line between church and state is not just being blurred, it is being erased. And if that can be erased, anything can be erased—including respect for whole groups of people. They repeatedly legalize the marginalization and minimization of actual REAL, ALIVE people…while they do seemingly unthinkable contortions to fight for the unborn. What. The. F-ck? I feel like if the high court can define embryos under the 14th Amendment, there’s some wiggle room on other amendments as well, but right now I am petrified by who is wiggling and the direction they are wiggling in. Our problems can’t get any more systemic than this. (Though the IL judge who ruled yesterday that the 14th Amendment bars that giant orange ball of slime from the primary ballot gives me hope.)
Speaking of the Cheeto, who wants a president with such an extreme case of FOMO? His is so extreme and egomaniacal that he has actually advised against doing a border deal without him. If it’s a crisis and we have a solution now, what are we waiting for? Some patriot, that human with the orangutan hair…
Speaking of the presidential primary, I’m not saying I like Nikki Haley, but the fact that she can’t win in a state where she was elected gov twice (and then got absolutely steamrolled in MI) should petrify you. That flaming pile of putrid human diarrhea is a hazmat disaster spreading faster than any wildfire, and it seems harder and harder to stop it. Wake up, people. He won’t sleep until he burns democracy to the ground, he is well on his way, and we are letting it happen.
Speaking of Nikki Haley, I was recently talking about the election and it was suggested that she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. While I agree with that, I’d also argue that Drumpf is a modern-day Nazi in a clown costume. Pick your poison, as they say…and consider policy not party when you vote this election season.
Time to dust off the word “covfefe” and get it back into the vocabulary rotation, sadly.
Subject change, kind of…because FL’s love of a circus goes back to its Ringling Bros. days. When I got to FL, my first task was to get my mom’s Apple Watch set up. She has afib, and she’s 81, so it probably was a good purchase. First EKG reading, the day I arrived? Heart in normal sinus rhythm. After that? Afib. Every. Damn. Day. I leave at 5:30 Monday morning. The Monday reading? Back to normal sinus rhythm. Coincidence? 😬😳 I sure hope so, but I’m not convinced…
The last night in Florida my mom wore her Hoka running shoes out to dinner. My aunt asked her if they were “hookahs.” Smoke ’em if you got ’em. 🤣
I’m telling you, if the people from Progressive need an idea for a new commercial, I have a winner. Picture this: Dr. Rick assembles an all-star team and sends them on missions to train their parents and others in retirement communities before it’s too late, getting them to stop doing the latest egregious practices they’ve embraced. Like putting chips in the freezer to stay fresh, re-using single use plastics (think baggies or plackers), calling Alexa Siri and vice versa and getting mad when she doesn’t respond, etc. etc. That would be funny, right?
If you’ve been here a while and have paid attention, you probably know that I’m a big proponent of having friends in all age groups. I know a lot of people have their so-called “mom friends”, the friends they make through their kids…but I also have “mom friends”—they’re the friends of whom I am old enough to be their mom. 🤣🤣🤣
I don’t eat fast food but the rising prices at McDonald’s and the proposed surge pricing at Wendy’s give me pause. If this doesn’t indicate that the world is going to hell, I am not sure what does.
I know I talk about what I’m watching (among other things I am doing) on Wednesdays, but since I just did that last week I can’t really wait a month on this one…and I’m not really gonna talk about it directly so, I’m gonna talk about it. As soon as you have a day to spend on a viewing binge (though I strongly suggest you make the time), watch One Day on Netflix (14 half-hour-ish episodes). You must watch it before your experience is sullied by a dirty spoiler. (If you’ve already read the book, seen the 2011 movie, or seen the series…just…zip it.) Without giving anything away, the story starts with a college graduation in 1988 and unfolds from there, so I felt very aligned to it in many ways (that was my time!). And the music. Oh, the music! The soundtrack provides an auditory mode of transportation unlike no other, a vehicle that has moved me to and from places and people and decades and experiences…not to mention it exposed me some songs I never heard by artists I love (Save Me by Joan Armatrading, to a great cover (These Days by Nico), to new artists and songs (Karen Dalton’s Something on Your Mind, The London Suede’s The Wild Ones)…and it also includes some old artists (Nick Drake, The Cocteau Twins) and songs (This is the Day by The The, The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys, Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry) both remembered and forgotten. And how is it I had never heard the soul-simmering song Protection (by Massive Attack featuring Tracey Thorn of the amazing Everything But the Girl) before Tuesday? It also includes some great dance beats (Anthem by N Joi) that took me right back to The Underground, that club in Portland that was a holy space in the early days of figuring it all out…I may not have even heard those songs there, but music has a way of taking you places. Anyway, watch the series, listen to the music, and then let’s talk about it all offline. OK? Or at such a time that we agree that the statute of limitations is up on spoilers.
Speaking of music, I have a thing about headphones (same for speakers—at least I’m consistent and predictable!), probably because I have a thing about music. The latest addition to my collection was a pair of Airpod Pros. One of my complaints about Planet Fitness is that the music is so loud it’s constant background noise, making it a challenge to listen to my own music or watch a show, no matter how loud I turn up the volume. So when Kerri told me she got a pair AND that they drown out the PF “soundtrack”, I was all in. I got them Tuesday, put them in, put on some music at a normal volume, turned the tv up to 25 (from 9), and heard…only my music. Nothing else. Brilliant. Yesterday it was raining, so I *had* to go to PF…a blow which was very much softened by the prospect of the headphone experiment. I *think* I still picked up the tiniest bit of the bumping PF beats, but they definitely improved my “watching tv while cycling in place” experience.
Back to One Day for a second. It was so much more than just a show to watch. For better or for worse it ignited my “what the f-ck am I doing and what the f-ck does it all mean?” fuse, shooting me down a number of both parallel and colliding paths, straightforward and roundabout, backwards and forwards…leading to more thoughts than I have time to summarize here and others that I have yet to fully process or understand. Anyhow, the one that nags at me is that quote attributed to Wayne Gretzky that goes “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Now I know what he meant by it, and I get the larger context for what he said, but—literal person that I am—I don’t find it accurate. “You don’t take 100% of the shots you don’t take” is more accurate, though less motivational. But that got me to thinking about my life…the shots I’ve taken, the ones I’ve missed, and how many I’ve been too petrified to pull the trigger on. Not sure how it happens but those shots you don’t take somehow end up misfiring, riddling your soul with bullet holes of what might have been…and who wants a soul that looks like a piece of stale Swiss cheese?
The deals the networks must have with people trying to get some attention for their products must be pretty sweet, because some of the products they push on the morning shows a) leave me scratching my head and b) have clearly never been used by the people enthusiastically and exuberantly promote. The other day I saw a “shirt extender” featured on the Today show—it was like a reverse dickie. It was an elastic shirt hem that you put around your waist like a skirt and it hangs below your sweater. What? (And what’s wrong with a full-on blouse under a sweater???) Wait, I need to find a pic of that. Seriously, these are a thing. 🤦🏼♀
I know I’m not working but I think about work a lot and I want (well, need) to get back to work. Regardless, I do thank Gen Z and Covid for forcing a landscape change, for opening up different models of work, for drawing wider and darker lines between work and life. That said, I also think that the pendulum has swung too far. We need some balance. Micromanaging people’s comings and goings as a proxy for people being good workers has been exposed for the lazy farce rear it was and something has to give if employers want to get people back in the office. In any case, I am hoping to land a hybrid role in the city, close to South Station or Rowe’s Wharf, for commuting purposes. (In case you know of anything…)
The other day I went for a walk, from about 12:15-1:45, and spent a large part of it giving myself a pep talk that when I went home I was going to shower and get into clothes, not pajamas. Some days are like that. And so are some weeks. The tide will turn eventually, as it always does…but turning the tide of ones life is not quite as effortless as the actual tide turning. Either way, 2:30 is too early for pajamas. (On most days, but not all…)
Even though I have a weekend away (and a few more days away from Kerri; bad timing, but…) it bears noting that there really is no place like home. I was so happy to walk through the door midday on Monday, and giddy waiting for Kerri to come through the door after work. It got me thinking about what home is, specifically that home isn’t a single location. We can have both roots and wings, and we can find comfort in people not places. In friendships and feelings. It’s subtle, but there’s a difference between feeling anchored and being weighted down, like being connected but not tethered. Like knowing that whatever safety rope will grow as long as needed so you can go where you need and always find your way back…that’s what home is for me, with her. In some ways I feel like I’ve let my world get smaller than I’d like…first due to COVID then complacency and now circumstances. While the shrinking has been subconscious, my awareness and acknowledgement of it right now (and this breakthrough comes as I type) gives me hope for growth, and sooner rather than later. As long as I stop hitting the snooze button and seize the opportunity that lies beyond my front bumper.
Let’s call it here. Two baker’s dozens of thoughts is enough of a mental workout for me to write about and more than enough for you to read. Plus I have coffee to drink, a job to find, and a suitcase to pack.
I thank each and every one of you for your presence here with me and wish you the happiest of Friday Eves.
Love you too.