Manic Monday Musings
Despite my love for alliteration I loathe the title that I just typed. Which is a problem because the point of my Monday posts is that I type here what I am thinking never edit.
The dog is standing in the door to my office looking at me because usually I come down the stairs let him out the decrepit 10 foot sliding doors (those that have done renovations know how terrifying and costly the above phrase might be) and then feed him his pill. Apollo has a pill for anxiety. Because he is my dog perhaps or because he is a chihuahua probably. In case you are wondering about the efficacy of the meds it seems a bit like the efficacy of SSRIS on me. Not great. I recommend other mechanisms to everyone who asks and also those who don’t ask. Like you. Apollo shivers like 5% less and gets off of my lap like 12% more but that is mostly when H is around and has food.
My daughter. There she is. I am not going to write about her or Leo in this blog. They are older now, already old enough to be almost their own not mine (except they will always be mine which they will understand one day or not but it will be the truth whether they understand it or not) so they can show up as someone who holds a cat or drives a car but not someone whose inner life I am forever interested in and thus want to share with you. So lots of big things, important things, emotional things, things with narrative arcs, will be missing from this new blog. And you can tell I am 100% fine and ready to comply with their wishes. It’s going to be super easy and natural to talk about my life without sharing it with my co-stars.
So who will you know? I guess the cats and the chihuahua. Steve. As much as he will let himself be known. My mom, who says she is always willing to be a punchline. My trainer, who when I asked if I could write about him said “I figured you were already writing terrible things about me.” My trainer? you might wonder. And if you are one of the majority of my readers who know me IRL (sometimes acronyms are useful because they save so much time typing) (like it definitely did there) know that you should question the trainer. Like I do. Three times a week. First I question myself. Why? Why? I hate this why? Then I question him. Why are you here? Like metaphorically why do you exist and then also why aren’t you skipping work so I can skip this. And then I question the warm up exercises which I have done 3 times a week since mid August and can’t remember and then I question each thing he says. Why the high end of the box why the bike not the rower. Why that many calories, weight, music light. And by minute 44 when I am still complaining he finally is saying it back. Why? Why are you here. So I win training in the end.
Here is a video of the dog being a derp. Video 1/18,973 and counting. I’m sure by next week I will know how to embed it seamlessly.
I can tell you that I got this exact trainer because the guy that came to the door to book me asked if there was anyone in particular I wanted to work with and I said give me the fattest and funniest one. And he said “there is nobody fat here” and I said “I’m here” and he said there are no fat trainers and I knew that this guy was not going to be the funniest one. And I said OK just give me whoever is free. So I got the one I got and he does seem to be the funniest one but the bar is really really low because this particular group of 20 something men who work with middle aged women in training bays next to each other like some torturous car wash don’t really seem to be funny at all. Like. AT ALL. But the one I got assigned to is funny. When I went to Breckenridge and he asked me what exercise I was going to do and I lied and told him a hike he asked for proof of a hike. So I drove around and found a trail that was pretty close to the road and then walked a little and then a little more and damn it if he hadn’t tricked me into hiking from miles away. So I sent a picture of me hiking and he said “great veiw, too bad you face is blocking most of it.” Which I thought was pretty funny.
So other things I am able to write about. Bi-polar stuff. It’s interesting (to me and probably to lots of people) but I started a $500 a month (I could write about money and privilege and our fucked up health care system) weight loss shot and it seems to be as good at mood modulation as it is at hunger cravings. Its pretty amazing actually and I keep meaning to look up the functions of the parts of the brain that it impacts but I don’t. Because I have to merge dragons in the evening, or watch F1 Need for Speed. Balance people. It’s important.
I can also write about houses and why after years of futile and fake minimalism ours now seems to be overflowing with fabric. Clothes, pillows, blankets, napkins, runners, swatches, squares (I don’t quilt and I have never quilted and I can’t imagine ever quilting cause skills and patience) I don’t know where it comes from. Maybe it’s through the mouse hole that surrounds the gas line to our outdoor grill. They like fabrics. Whatever it is the fabric snow drifts are not a conscious choice and so I am going to try to start noticing more. Speaking of noticing I can write about my meditation practice which has sort of subtly become an actual thing. My app keeps stats (which seems a touch non-Buddhist but because I don’t know what it means to be Buddhist I will just keep that to myself) and my stats are pretty amazing. I have meditated for months worth of time. Which might explain last spring and why I can’t remember a single thing I did then. It also might be when the fabric crept in.
It isn’t even spring yet but I am prescient (and also in control of my behavior (sometimes)) so I know that I will be bitching about our North facing driveway. It has ice on it now. ICE. We moved to Denver for sun and I went back to Vermont and gave manic (oooh Manic Monday) speeches about how it snows in Denver and then there is so much sun that they don’t even need to plow. The city seems to agree with me because the side street where we park our extra cars (yeah last time I wrote we only had one car which I humble bragged about and now we have four which I feel shame about but still am mentioning and let me partially explain by saying we now have 4 drivers. Sorta) and our driveway have both been covered in ice and snow since November. In Denver. With all that sun. So I can talk about Palm Springs and how I have switched my plans from Anna Maria Island in Florida (can’t even visit that state because of their horrible and worsening politics) to Palm Springs which has springs in the name but only a tiny trickle of water. I went there last week and can tell you about the midcentury houses and how the only ice was in my drinks. Which is certainly I line I have heard before but it is good enough to repeat here.
I can also write about Vermont and possible the college application process but that will have to be vetted and maybe my thoughts about Hazel leaving but somehow disentangle it from anything about Hazel the person which makes those thoughts sort of boring. There are other topics for sure. But as you probably remember my actual expertise only exists in a very small bubble (Patriots, zigsaw puzzles, coffee shops withing 1/2 mile of my house, TV shoes, super shitty novels, some sort of merge game on my phone) so it will probably be me and also this bug eyed beast who really really wants his pill so he can have the foul meat playdough wrapped around it.
Tell me about your expertise. What do you know WELL? Well enough so that your own blog wouldn’t just be about stretchy pants and rainbow organized bookshelves (although I would totally read those or at least look at the pictures.) It seems to be hard for people to figure out the comments because obviously dozens of you want to answer my question and so far only John (tip of hat John) seems to be able to leave his inbox and comment directly on the Substack. Perhaps that is because John’s expertise is substack’s and we stumbled right onto it. You’re welcome John. In all meanings of the phrase.
If you need help John can show you how.
PS. My mom "wishes I would fix the spelling" Does that count as editing? Is it breaking the rules of stream of consciousness writing? Are there rules for that?
Thanks for commenting! I hope you are still getting your hands dirty in the best possible way.
I miss having you in my daily live and I love how much of your personality and voice come through in your writing. If you ever write a book (you should!), you'd DEFINITELY need to be the audiobook reader. Something like David Sedaris meets Sarah Silverman with a dash of the pop culture version of Thich Nhat Hanh, whomever that is.