I Love 12/26

Today is one of my most favorite days of the year.

After weeks of watching and hearing about people lose their minds because of Christmas, 12/26 means it's thankfully over. All that frenetic and crazed Christmas energy- which I am highly sensitive to and respond very negatively to - is now a thing of the past, at least for the next 10 months or so.

I wake up on the morning of 12/26 like little kids do on the morning of 12/25:  joy-filled, exhilarated, ready to seize the day 😁

The only things left now to deal with are castoff Christmas trees - which break my heart - and New Year's Eve.

I am not of the real Christmas tree camp because, as an ardent tree lover, all I see are the happy trees that get murdered, then propped up in people's living rooms to slowly die while decorated in lights and baubles and then thrown to the curb where they will complete their death throes no longer wanted and waiting to be transported to the landfill. 
I will never be convinced that any tree is happier getting chopped down instead of living out its days with its roots in the ground surrounded by its tree friends and family. 
Think I'm crazy?  I'm not. Read this and watch this.

As for New Year's Eve revelry - no, thank you.  I like mine quiet with no pomp or circumstance.
Although after this nightmare year I may stay awake to watch 2020 end.

JP and I decided to follow guidelines and not have people over or go visiting this year for Christmas.

Our thoughts are that it's better to err on the side of caution + sacrificing one year is nothing in the grand scheme of things. We still got to see the people we care about only we did it via drive-by present dropoffs and video phone calls. My 80 year old mother threw open her second floor window and we stood under it waving and throwing kisses. Not the ideal way we would have liked to spend the day but we implemented the 2020 mantra:  it is what it is.

However, we were sadly made aware from other people we know whose families were not being cautious - the "you have to live your life" types - that they were being manipulated/guilted/bullied by them for deciding, like us, to not throw caution to the wind.

Please please tell me you are not Covid guilting anyone. No one gets to tell another person how or what they should be doing in the middle of an unprecedented plague (unless their behavior is endangering others). Don't be a Covid jerk.

I'm going to spend this week before the new year tidying up my website and developing ideas and making plans for my life and business as 2021 gets ushered in. This week is always a weird one, right? Like, you can't figure out what day it is or why you can't stop eating :-)
Best to just decide to relax this week and have as much fun as you can.

And, really, don't worry too much about all the eating. 
You don't always have rich leftovers and bins filled with homemade cookies laying around.

Relax. Enjoy. Have fun. 
It's been a rough year.  ♥

The Gift Of Holiday Spirit From The Ornament-Finders

After the past year we've all had, I knew coming into the season that I would be lacking a good deal of holiday spirit. Since I lost my sense of smell in 2009, holiday spirit has basically been a thing of the past anyway.

If you can smell properly, you would be shocked by the magnitude of the toll not being able to smell takes. Most people think "oh, you just can't smell stuff" but it goes much, much deeper than that. For example (and this is how not being to smell ties into lack of holiday enthusiasm), since losing my sense of smell I can no longer attach scent to memories. This is a profound loss. So at Christmastime, no Christmas tree smell, no fresh baked cookie smell, no turkey or ham or lasagna cooking smell, no pretty candle smells, etc. All of the scents that would take me back to past memories...gone.

From the Portsmouth Daily Times: The sense of smell is uniquely connected to memories, especially during the holiday season. The connection between smell and memory is strong because it is so immediate. In fact, did you know that the sense of smell is the only one of the five senses that bypasses the rational part of the brain and goes directly to the limbic area, where memory and emotion are? Which is why when you smell something, it immediately takes you on a walk down memory lane, allowing you to recall the emotion associated with that scent from the first time you smelled it. This direct connection between smell and the brain is how aromas become strong memory triggers, often without our awareness until we smell the same scent again.

”I genuinely believe that the sense of smell is the most important sense because it is so closely tied to memory. One’s life is made up of nothing but a collection of memories and experiences. To have a sense that can literally take you back 40 years to your childhood on Christmas morning in an instant – well, it’s incredible,” says Emrie Oliver, in-house fragrance expert for ScentSicles.

So that, in a nutshell, is why it's been harder to get into the spirit of things at holidays.

Throw in a pandemic and it's a wonder that I'm not crying in a closet everyday. It would be easy to choose to do that, right? But I'm not really someone who gives in and gives up easily. I have been diagnosed with depression since losing my sense of smell but thankfully it's mostly mild-ish (anxiety on the other hand? well that's a topic for another day!). I struggle, but I function, and I'm pretty good at finding ways to lift myself up enough to at least have my head above water when a funk strikes.

First Drop Of My Free Ornaments

Today was the first drop of my hand painted ornaments that I'm giving away for free.

I set out with my helper Luna (the Elf Dog)

and off we went to find a couple of places to leave the ornaments.

Luna (the Elf Dog) suggested that we leave the ornaments at parks and even though it kind of felt like she had an ulterior motive - she really like taking walks at parks - I thought it was a good suggestion so that's what we did.

First drop: Huddy Park in Toms River:

gingerbread man ornament left conspicuously at the edge of the bench

Second drop: Whispering Pines Park in Berkeley Twp:

snowman ornament nestled snugly between the fence post

We decided that setting out two ornaments each time we go out on a Ornament Drop is enough each time.

I have to tell you it was really fun doing this today.

I hope that whoever finds them loves them.

I'm also so hoping that I will hear from the finders!

Inertia During Worldwide Plague But Happy Holidays!

Well here we are in Month Nine of The Plague.

Thanksgiving was a few days ago and a lot of people went ahead and had too many people over to eat a meal that they could postpone and eat at any other safer time but, dammit, they won't be denied!

Black Friday was yesterday and did not disappoint despite the plague: the roads were rife with oblivious, manic shoppers and there was the requisite fistfight...this time at the local mall and over the last PS5, which I think is the latest video game apparatus.

Fighting. With fists. Over a video game machine.

During a pandemic.
Sure, why not?

If you are like me, none of the ongoing nonsense is doing much to restore your faith in humanity at a time when we so, so desperately need a little faith restoration.

Also, if you are like me, you're dealing with a whole lot of inertia right about now.

I don't even really leave the house much anymore except to go pick up curbside grocery orders, a service for which I have gratitude on a level I did not think possible. 

Can You Chat?

I have a friend - we'll call her Glenda - who I have known for decades, since high school.

Over the years, our friendship has ebbed and flowed as friendships sometimes do and I'm happy to say that right now we are flowing along nicely.

Glenda (in blue) and me (in pink - I was going to somebody's prom)
in my parent's very Italian living room.
Please note the heavy velvet draperies and the velvet couch that was for company only.
To the left and out of range of the camera was one of those lamps that dripped oil
which was de rigueur in an Italian household. 
Please also take note of our hair. It took hours to get those "wings" perfect.

She lives a few hours away and things like life and pandemics get in the way quite often so we don't get together as we wish we did.  Sometimes even months go by in between our contact with each other. No one feels slighted; we just pick right up which is what happened the other day.

Normalizing The Abnormal

The other day I was somewhere - maybe the grocery store or BJs - and a woman walked past me who was sporting a black face mask that was completely encrusted in rhinestones.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a website that was geared toward the wealthy and just for fun because I wanted to see how the other half lives, I clicked on their 'Shop Now' button which led me to the page where they were selling handmade face masks using antique French fabrics for "just" $75.

Face masks now come in every conceivable color and print and you can get them with graphics that allow you to plaster your favorite sports team or rock band or presidential candidate across your face.

None of this is normal to me and there is a snowball's chance in hell that I'm going to change my mind about that anytime soon.

Doesn't anyone remember when Michael Jackson used to wear one and no one understood why and thought he was weird because of it?

Understand, though, that I am not an anti-masker type. I get that we all have to wear masks now and I don mine wherever I am supposed to which does not include when I am driving by myself in my car, by the way.

That doesn't mean I like wearing masks.
That doesn't mean I want to make a fashion statement with them.
The only good thing about them other than protecting us from the plague is that I can talk to myself and no one will know.

...and the fogged up glasses are always fun, too.

But I don't want face masks to be normal.

Right now they seem to be the newest cottage industry as there's obviously money to be made from them which is an odd thing unto itself.

What if that doesn't end when (yes, when) we finally get the okay to stop wearing them? What if people actually like their masks and don't want to give them up? What if face masks are the new hot accessory, like sunglasses? Especially if they paid $75 for them? I mean, antique French fabric! Rhinestones! What are they going to do with them when the plague is over? Are they really just going to throw them away?  Maybe they're planning to tuck them in the back of their underwear drawer when this ends so that they're ready for whenever the next plague hits? When else would they wear them again?  Do they think it will never end? 

Call me crazy but making a fashion statement out of the thing we are being made to wear because there is an invisible thing out there that is very dangerous and has caused and is causing so much grief and devastation is just super weird.  I might be missing the point - that's always a very real possibility with me.  Are the fashionable masks a way of coping? In a time when there's so many reasons to be fearful, is it a bad thing to take the scary thing and make it less scary?  I'm torn.

Windy Monday

"Windy" by me, 2016

"I don't know, maybe it's that most people are checking their phones 

instead of watching the wind 

but I sometimes think it's okay to just observe 

the wonder of the world we're in." 

-r.i.d.

Interesting Questions From Facebook Marketplace

As part of the massive downsizing we are still in the middle of since the beginning of this heinous year, I have been selling a bunch of stuff using the Marketplace feature on Facebook.

While I mostly detest Facebook, I find it to be quite useful in making me a good deal of extra cash as I use its Marketplace to unload the things we no longer want or need, which is very nice.

Sometimes, though, interacting with the general Facebook public can get a little...interesting.

For example, the other day I listed a set of armchairs that we cannot use in our new home.

These are them, in a picture the realtors took when we were selling our old home:

I listed them as "Beautiful Armchairs" and wrote a nice description which included that they were from a clean, smoke free home.

I got a few tire kickers which are basically people who think the item you are selling is very nice and that they would maybe like to own it just not enough to actually pay for it or have to arrange to pick it up.

And then I got this message:

"Do you have pets?"

Well, yes, I do have pets.  Actually, one pet and she's a yorkshire poodle mix which means she doesn't shed and is considered to be hypoallergenic so it's irrelevant to selling these chairs and so I didn't mention my pet ownership status in the ad.

But before I could answer, they sent another message.  This one said:

"I'm asking if you have pets because I have a dog and this is exactly the type of furniture that he likes to 'mark' all the time."

How does one even respond to such a statement? 

They were asking me, seriously, if I was selling furniture that was desecrated by an animal.

Worse, they admitted that they have a dog that pees on their furniture all the time.

ALL. THE. TIME.

I sat for quite awhile pondering my response.

Many questions arose, most of which I did not want to ask, such as if you have a house filled with furniture that your dog had peed on all the time, what does it matter if you're purchasing more peed on furniture? 
Also, do you ever have company? 

Anyway, I went the high brow route and wrote back that I can assure them that for one, I would never own or allow a pet to pee on my furniture and for two, that in the very unlikely event that a pet that I owned dared to relieve itself on my furnishings, I most certainly would not then offer the disgusting item for sale to the general public as the furniture would be at the curb for the next trash pickup.

They wrote back that they were no longer interested.
I can't figure out if it's because I went high brow or because the chairs weren't peed on. 😄

Finally, September

“We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer’s wreckage. We will welcome summer’s ghost.”

— Henry Rollins

Once again, after an 11-year absence, I am back living with a few miles of the ocean at this, the best time of the year. Those who live in this area look forward to "local summer" - which is September, and if the weather cooperates, even October. Local summer - when the tourists and summer residents all go back to their homes and the seashore belongs again to the locals.  No crowds, no traffic - at least during the week. The tourists still come on weekends, but their numbers are far less than in proper summer. The cacophony of high summer transitions to the melancholy of September, when the memories of summer are still fragile in their newness.

Do you notice how the light changes in September? I really hope you do. No longer harsh, it's a soft and diffuse light, a gentler one. It almost twinkles with a bit of magic. 
As with all things magical, I highly recommend you find some time to notice, appreciate, bask in it.

In September it always feels to me that you can finally exhale as summer's intensity wanes.

Taken To My Bed

Whenever life gets to be too much for me to deal with, I take to my bed.

Bed is my refuge.

I pile up about 10 pillows behind me so that bed is cloud-like and then I just float there, hiding from life existing in my bed until whatever is happening that is overwhelming me...passes.
Or the meds kick in.  Whichever comes first.  Ha ha.
Sigh.

Anyhow.

Depending upon what is happening, 'I've taken to my bed' usually means that I take to my bed for a few hours or a few days until I no longer feel the great need to escape from reality.
I haven't had to take to my bed in a surprisingly long time;
however, the past month has been so surreal and tumultuous that I definitely have spent more time in bed than out of bed. (Thanks, C-PTSD)

Make no mistake, though...I am (mostly) not just laying in bed staring off into space or crying watching reruns or eating bags of Skinnypop. On the contrary, I'm often tucked in there all propped up reading about Harry and Megan still thinking about being semi-productive and how much I wish I was working away on my laptop in between the tiny catnaps that I can eke out during a lull in the construction renovation noise happening in the apartment above us directly above my head.

The renovations above my head being a significant part of why I've recently taken to my bed.  I will tell the renovations story at a later date but so as to not leave you hanging, suffice it to say that, unbeknownst to us, big renovations had been planned for the apartment above us before we even moved in. This information would have played a role in our decision to take this apartment but we didn't have/weren't given this information at the time so we took it ("the apartment upstairs isn't ready yet" is what we were told). For example, had we been told when we came to view the apartment that "at some point during your tenancy we are going to be renovating the apartment above you for an extended period of time of perhaps two months or so resulting in almost daily very loud construction noises that will very much interfere with your ability to live/work/sleep here peacefully", we probably would have elected to not live here.

I know.  The audacity of us to want pay a bunch of money each month and expect that in return we would get to live here peacefully.  What nerve we have.

And this is just part of the story that I will tell at a later date.

i don't have 4 young children but if i did this would be them

But let's face it, when life circumstances send you to your bed too much or too often, it is definitely time to reconsider things and make changes that are within your power to do so.

So we are doing that. One day at a time.

It's getting to be time to get out of bed and put away the Skinnypop.

However! If you find that you yourself would rather be in your bed instead of most any other place, then go there and stay there until you sort yourself out enough to deal or function or regain the capacity to make decisions.

This is where I go wrong, often.
I have been known to make really bad decisions. For example, like not asking a prospective landlord if there is any chance that they will be doing extensive renovations to the apartment above the one you are interested in at the time you are viewing the apartment you're interested in.
I kid...mostly. I mean, what are the chances that a landlord would have major renovations planned that would happen above your head and not tell you about them?

Ahem.

Take it from me. You really should ask questions like that. Maybe pose it as something general, like "are you planning on any kind of non-essential, non-emergency work in the building in the foreseeable future that will significantly impact our ability to live here peacefully and quietly?"
Maybe get the answer in writing, too.

But let's get back to bed and making bad decisions.

Bed is a haven. Bed is your own private island (Idaho?). I do my best thinking in bed because bed feels safe even when you're waiting for some construction guy to fall through the ceiling because they are jackhammering right above you.

If you have decisions to make whether they be big ones or small ones, go to bed and lay there and do nothing. The decisions you come up with from there will probably be better ones but if it turns out that they're not, at least you'll be a little bit better rested.

I'm thinking about dropping the Poor Girl Mercantile name soon, I think.

It's no longer resonating with me. It's not fully capturing the essence of everything I do.
I know...I'm not doing much right now so I'll have to wait it out because "Lady In Bed" is probably not a good business name.

What the real new name will be is up in the air right now. I've got some good ones that I already own the domains for but I have to let them simmer for awhile until I mull them over for a good long time -in an environment in which I am not listening to drilling, sanding, banging happening above my head for hours on a regular basis - to make sure that the one I choose is right.

The naming of your business is a huge thing. I operate as a sole proprietorship so thankfully it's just changing the DBA (doing business as), which then allows me to do that whenever I'm compelled to.

Here's What I Have To Say

JP and I spent the past two days at our Delaware house, completing the last of the packing and moving stuff to storage. It was a little bit bittersweet as there are things about that house that we'll miss. For me, it's all the birds that visit each day because they know I'm a sucker for feeding them. It was a nice house for us but it was never my end-all dream house so leaving it isn't as bad as I thought it might be. Thankfully we weren't there long enough to make many memories which makes selling it even easier. Also, everybody who knows me knows that the truth is I never loved Delaware but it was where JP worked so you do what you have to do and make the best of it. Bloom where you're planted blah blah blah.

JP stayed behind a little longer to finish things up yesterday afternoon while I headed out to go back to our Pennsylvania interim apartment. As I was driving I happened to pass a gun shop and was stunned to see that there was a line of maybe 15+ people waiting to get inside.

Not gonna lie: it unnerved me and sent a bit of a chill down my spine. I understand lines if donuts or cake or puppies are involved. But guns? Yeah, no.

I don't really want to be in a place where people are lined up to buy firearms, you know?*

I've been in deep contemplation for the past few weeks about social media and its effects on me.
For various reasons, a lot of my time is spent in front of a computer and when I step back and actually pay attention and be truthful - it's a lot more than "a lot of my time".  It's more like most of my time. Part of that is that my personal livelihood comes from artwork that I create on a computer or the fact that I sell things via computer. So with that comes all kinds of connections that have to be updated and monitored. Then of course I stray off course and wander down the rabbit hole of reading about things that in truth don't matter.
And it has taken a toll. A big one.

I used to not be jaded and now I kinda am. I used to have an attention span and now I don't have much of one. I used to have good eyesight and now I don't.
But those things are just the tip of the iceberg.
When you spend too much time enmeshed in the world of social media you can't really tell what's real and what isn't anymore.
This came to light for me just the other day. They were protesting in Delaware and things got ugly so I wanted to call my 80 year old mother to let her know that JP was fine (he was in Delaware and she knew that). But she had no idea what I was talking about when I told her about the protests. I had to bring her up to speed. This is not because she is in any kind of mental decline; it's simply because she just does not pay much attention to the news. She almost never knows anything about current events. She just doesn't see the point.

It's hard to imagine, isn't it, that someone could know not a whole lot about what's happening in the world they live in?

Yet I think she's better off. Way better off. She makes a great point about not seeing the point.

And I've decided to take her lead and edit what I let in.
There are so many better things to do with my time and fill my mind with.



*Nothing at all to due with a 2A issue

Current Life In Easton

The city in which we are currently residing has blocked off the major thoroughfare through the town center with large concrete barriers. They did this so people can dine outside while at the local restaurants.

The ambiance is..."spectacular" (quotes added intentionally to denote a teensy bit of sarcasm). Nothing says appetizing like dining on hot dirty blacktop in what resembles a construction zone while inhaling the emissions of the vehicles passing very closely by. Yummy.

The restaurants are understandably gleeful and their voluminous patrons are seemingly so glad to have restrictions lifted that asphalt dining works very well for them.  That's terrific for them.  I, however, have been steering very clear of all of this because I've seen lots of photos and videos that clearly show a severe lack of social distancing despite the governmental mandates and I'm not comfortable getting up close and personal with strangers at this time. We refer to the downtown dining area as Coronaville 😄and that is no place I want to be.  It's okay if you scorn me because of that and tell me to "just stay home then!".  We prefer to err on the side of caution and are happily staying home, thanks. There are less germs and car emissions here.

The kicker is that because the city blocked off the major crosstown thoroughfare, the traffic is being directed onto our street, which is very very unfortunate. When we rented this place as our interim home between selling and buying homes, we did so because it was a quiet street in an historic neighborhood.

Now it very closely resembles the Jersey Shore on any night between Memorial and Labor Days.

I can use that comparison because I lived at the Jersey Shore for 30+ years and I know all about the shenanigans that comes with living in a tourist hot spot. For part of that time I was actually an avid participant in the shenanigans so I'm kind of an expert.

The shenanigans to which I refer includes traffic backups, horns honking, people shouting at each other, drunken debauchery, etc. All of this is now happening right outside my windows. I can no longer take naps or open those windows for fresh air.

The worst offenders of the noise pollution I am paying big monthly rent to be subjected to are the vehicles who badly need new mufflers and/or those whiney little cars that the owners think are so cool but are anything but (I'm of the age to know what real cool is/was);

motorcycle riders who rev their engines for absolutely no apparent reason (I ride my own so don't even go there - I know of what I speak).

But the absolute worst offenders are the loud music players.
Don't get me wrong, I still crank it up in the car - an old fuddy duddy I am not! - but what I am witnessing just outside my windows are decibel levels that are making those windows rattle and the floor under my feet shake. I kid you not. This is especially "fun" just as you're dozing off.
And if that isn't bad in and of itself, I have to tell you something else...

people are listening to some realllly bad music.

I mean, I might not mind so much if every few minutes someone pulled up outside and played something good that only mildly made my ears bleed, but alas that is not the case. Many of the cars are blasting rap/hip hop music.  Enough said there because even though I am actually fond of some rap/hip hop, having it reverberate your brain is not ever good. But they are not the only offenders.  In fact I've been quite surprised by some of the stuff people are driving around listening to.  Yesterday, for example, someone was blasting Jeremiah Was A Bullfrog. And just a few minutes ago I heard I Am Woman by Helen Reddy loud and clear as if it were 1972 and I was at her concert. I promise I am not making that up.

Easton*. The gift that keeps on giving.

 

*It's okay if I don't care for Easton just like it's okay if you do care for Easton. Some people like spinach and others abhor it. You can't chastise someone for their opinion or taste(s) just because it differs from your own.

City Life About Face

I do not care for city living. Particularly the current city in which we are residing.

I wouldn't have written that 20+ years ago to be sure when I dreamed about living in NYC but like almost everything else I used to be about, my truths have changed. In fact, if you have a young person/people around you to advise, you should tell them that part about growing older: who you are and what you do at a certain age might not resemble at all who you'll be a decade or two or three later. You will have many personas throughout your life, grasshopper.

The city where our interim apartment is located is more like a big town but it's called a city so I'll stick with that. When we first came up here last winter during the time when our circumstances were changing and we were starting to plan for our upheaval, we were charmed. We thought oh good, a place with history and beautiful architecture and restaurants and shops that we can walk to. 

So we moved here, into an apartment that makes you think of a Parisian  apartment, a pied-à-terre;
a small apartment that isn't meant to be your permanent home. We have wide plank wood floors and very large windows that overlook the street, a bedroom that you have to walk up two steps to enter, a gleaming remodeled kitchen that no one ever used before us. It's cozy and cool - like what we thought the big town/small city was when we made the decision to move here.

But there are downsides.

Memories & Tiny Little Gardens

A bunch of years ago I used to spend a good deal of my time in Manhattan; Greenwich Village, specifically.

I lived in NJ but only about 20 minutes from NYC so it was nothing to jump into the city on a whim...and that whim struck sometimes 3-4 times a week.

I loved the Village. I knew its nooks and crannies, I knew the cracks in its sidewalks, I inhaled its vibe and let it infiltrate my blood. I knew its homeless people by name and they knew mine. I was a non-resident resident.  Some of the greatest nights of my life were spent sitting on a stoop, drinking a big old coffee, people-watching. I created memories there - simple ones - that are stamped forever on my heart.

Of course I wanted to live there.

What Day Is Today?

Not a great week, so far.  No surprises there.

I'm vacillating between mostly coping and thinking rationally and, well, this...



Today I can joke. Not so much a day or so ago. Maybe not tomorrow. Saturday? Maybe.

But things are getting better.  Where I am, wherever you are, and even in really faraway places.  We're reopening, slowly and cautiously.
Knowing that, helps.

One of my coping techniques through this has been to watch webcams all over the world. I started watching them early on, to confirm what I was hearing: that the world was shut down. Empty beaches in Florida, Paris with no people, the Abbey Road camera with no one acting the fool as they imitated the famous Beatles scene (on a regular pre-pandemic day, Abbey Road is filled with scads of people trying not to get hit by vehicles as they walk across the famous zebra stripes while their friend takes their picture.)
I would watch these webcams intently, looking for any sign of life.

Reality Bites

Yesterday was bad, today is better.

That's how things go now - you're up, you're down, you're in the middle - and sometimes all in that happens in one single day.  In no particular order.

I called JP at work yesterday when I started crying.
He asked why I was crying.
I told him I didn't know exactly.
He was so kind and understanding and reassuring, I felt better almost right away.
I hope you have at least one person you can call (not text!) when/if you start crying for no apparent reason.

I had to go to the grocery store again yesterday and I think that's what triggered me.  I do a bang-up job of keeping my depression at bay - as a high-functioning depressive I've been doing it for years  - but sometimes a thing hits you that you're not already on guard for and then you slump.
Not even the joy I have when I think about my new freezer was helping 😏

For me, the trigger was seeing all the people lined up with their masks on, waiting their turn to get into the store.  Like a scene out of one of those really bad movies they show late at night on Saturdays. Or a Twilight Zone episode.  A zombie movie.  Then I go straight into this really can't be happening in the United States of America.  In 2020.

I drove home from the store thinking that I would do anything to be a little kid again right now when my parents had all the responsibility and kept me safe.  And did the grocery shopping during a pandemic.

I've never been really good at this adult thing to begin with.  I am well aware now how foolish I was to want to be one when I was young.

And so I continue to do as I always do to cope: find as much nonsense as I can to distract myself from too much reality.

Nonsense is my drug of choice.

Scoring A High Demand Item: I Got A Freezer

There used to be a time in the not-so-distant past when the type of purchases that made me over-the-moon happy were things like shoes (oh so many shoes)...silver jewelry...some great funky find like the vintage designer real velvet red coat I scored in a New Hope, PA thrift shop for next to nothing.

I am here now to tell you - the times, they are a changin'.

As I write this, I am basking in the sheer unadulterated joy of...my new freezer.

Upright, nonetheless.  Glass shelves.  The whole freezer-y nine yards.

The apartment we live in for now while we're between houses has a brand new stainless steel fridge in the shiny redesigned kitchen.
Like the kitchen itself, it suffices but it's small which means more trips to the grocery store.  I hate going to the grocery store now which is weird because I have never hated going to the grocery store before this stupid pandemic.  I went yesterday. It's a nightmare. You park in a spot and then you have to put on your Grocery Shopping Gear before exiting your vehicle:

I Still Can't Sell Anything

Now that the world is closed and there's nothing to do but stay home and be creative, I've been doing exactly that except that I'm not doing any of my usual stuff like photo art, art clothing, etc.

Those things are my money makers, the things I create that have been my source of income for a bunch of years now.

Yet I can't bring myself to work on any of it. Many of my creative compatriots have actually amped up their production and are talking about how now is a good time for creative people's businesses because there is a (literal) world of people out there with time on - and credit cards in - their hands.

I can't tap into that.

I just read that 17 million people applied for unemployment in the past three weeks. I can't help but think it would be pretty obnoxious of me to send out a newsletter or write posts about the new things I've made that they should buy during this mess.

Sure I could make stuff and set it aside for the hopefully not too distant future when things will return to some semblance of normal.  I might do that.  I'm working on finding the motivation to do that.

In the meantime, I'm painting. It's so calming. I'm making ornaments and painting whimsical things on them with the sole intent of leaving them around the neighborhood for people to find.

Like little, free, spirit uplifters.

Pandemonium Diary, Episode 1

Yesterday was a not great day. The weather here in Easton was terrible with lots of wind and rain and then we were under a tornado warning.  Tornado warnings/watches give my anxiety so much anxiety that my chest tightens and I spend the day mildly hyperventilating.  I run around the house closing all blinds and curtains so I can't see the sky and then I go to bed. That was yesterday.

Today is better.  I got over my grocery store trepidation and went early. And you know what? It wasn't bad at all.  The shelves were stocked (except in the TP aisle) and the aisles weren't crowded. The only weird part was everyone wearing masks and gloves.  I so hate that part. You remember on Star Trek how they would step into that tube thing and then get transported to somewhere else? That's what it feels like to me when I look around and see all these people wearing masks.  Like I somehow got transported without my permission out of the United States and into some third world country.

I feel compelled to write today. There's nothing else to talk or write about so I am giving in to writing about the current state of affairs.

Raise Your Vibe & Stop Stealing My Hand Sanitizer

Everyone is hyper-focused on only one thing right now and I'm no exception but I have to tell you that I am pushing back hard every single day against that exact thing: hyper-focusing.

I said recently that I wasn't even going to write about this stuff too much but I felt compelled to this morning because I want to be someone who reminds you to take every chance to raise your vibration.

All is well is my new mantra and it would serve the world right now if you could come up with something similar. 

painting happy ornaments to keep myself happy

We know we're supposed to stay home so please stop saying it over and over and over again; raising the energy level is what is needed.  Also, everything is closed and there's really no place to go right now so staying home is kind of the only thing to do. Plus when you say something too much people tend to tune out.

Also unnecessary: saying in these uncertain times. All of the commercials say this. Heck, every day of our lives is and has been uncertain!
I'm certain that things will certainly be more certain rather than uncertain certainly soon.

I am also certain that you should locate the mute button on your remote so that when every single fear-based , triggering commercial comes on the television you can mute it quickly.

Pay attention to the triggers:  anything you see or hear that makes your stomach tighten with tension or makes your heart rate increase, etc.  Whatever those things are for you are exactly what you have to protect yourself from and avoid.  As a coping mechanism, I'm on a complete news fast right now.  If there's something I really need to know, someone will tell me.

I thought about this recently: for so long now, so many gazillions of people have been putting forth so much energy to saying how broken our world is for the various reasons that they've decided to focus on and, well, here we now are.  I can't wrap myself around how much gloom and doom negative energy was generated by that kind of thought. I was always uneasy with it. You have to be careful about what you're putting out there, ya know?  Cause and effect...like attracts like...and all that.

Raise your vibe. Spotlight and imagine what's right, not what you think is wrong.
Shift your focus even if you can only do so for a few minutes at a time right now. 
We need the uplifters.

Plus you'll be a nicer, calmer, more centered person as a result.  My father was like this. Calamities could be abounding and he'd say gee, that's terrible and then wander off to get a bowl of ice cream to enjoy while he watched his game shows or previously taped golf tournaments.  It's not that he didn't care; on the contrary, he would have actually given you the shirt off of his own back if you needed it.  He just always had a it will all work out one way or another outlook and I can't think of a time when he wasn't right.

I've been keeping myself busy with painting and creating all kinds of things.
The wood ornament pictured above is an example of the type of stuff I've been doing.
I wanted to create things to leave around town for people to find to lift their spirits.  JP says some stuff I should sell but I can't bring myself to do that right now.  I feel like in a world where there's a toilet paper shortage, people probably should be thinking about spending their money on black market Charmin or hand sanitizer.

Speaking of hand sanitizer, I had ordered some all natural hand sanitizer a few weeks back on Amazon. It was on backorder which was fine, I was in no rush and just glad to know I would eventually have some.
I was happy to receive notification that it had shipped earlier than anticipated and even happier to get a text message days later saying it had just been delivered (you can sign up on Amazon to be notified when something gets delivered).
I raced downstairs but no package anywhere. I raced back upstairs to check my notifications again and they said it had been left in my mailbox.  Well, my mailbox is big enough to hold about three letters so how could two 8 oz bottles of hand sanitizer be in there? 
I raced back downstairs again, unlocked my mailbox, only to find the empty mailing envelope the hand sanitizer had been shipped in.  Empty and very obviously slit open at the bottom.
Yup, some heathen stole my hand sanitizer.
The empty envelope was inside a clear plastic bag from the post office with a big We're Sorry! sticker on it that the post office apparently uses when there's an evident problem with a package.

You couldn't make any of this stuff up if you tried.

Worldwide Weirdness

I'm not going to talk about this too much because at this moment I am choosing to focus my thoughts and energy on good things and put that kind of positivity out into the Universe at a time when it is so very badly needed.

Everything's freaky right now, I know.
Those of us with anxiety issues know all too well that it's very very easy to freak out right now which of course won't help anyone or anything.

So.

Here's my simple advice to you and to me, not necessarily in any particular order:

• Stay away from the news.  If there is something you should know about, someone will tell you. Today I went online to check the weather and the headline on that site was awful.  There was not one thing about that headline that was helpful to anyone in any way or even related to the weather - just fear-mongering because that's what sells.  Shame on them. 
• Stay away from or at least limit social media.  People are posting all kinds of things and while some of it is helpful or uplifting, a lot of it is not and can be quite triggering.  
• If you must go on social media, post about happy stuff, silly stuff, encouraging stuff. 
• Do calming things that distract you.  I don't care if you think you don't have a creative bone in your body, pick up a pencil and doodle.  At best, you'll surprise yourself.  At worst, you'll laugh at yourself.  Both are good things.
• Clean.  It's therapeutic.  So is cooking, baking, reading, laughing, etc.
• Remember that there are many, many people working very, very hard right now to keep all of us safe.  Yay for them! This morning I thanked all the people at my grocery store for all they're doing right now. They all said how much they appreciated hearing that.  

There isn't much more that I can say about all of this that a gazillion people aren't already saying so this is it. Going forward I'll keep writing about stuff that has nothing to do with this stuff and then you and I will both be happier because the constant inundation isn't really helping anyone.  

Oh...and that reminds me...

it is still okay to be happy.  

In fact, repeat this as often as you can, even if it's 9,264 times a day or write it on your hand as a reminder so you don't forget: IAGTBHA.

Pronounced eye-ag-teh-buh-ha ;-)

It stands for I Am Going To Be Happy Anyway!

Corny, but it works most/some of the time.

So bake that cake, draw silly pictures, find stuff to laugh about or otherwise distract yourself with.
You'll be helping yourself and those around you.  Mr. Rogers said in times of trouble look for the helpers :-)

Remember this, too:  the things that are being done right now are being done to protect us.  And that's ultimately a good thing even though it doesn't feel very good right now.

Higher End Of Chaos

My lack of writing for the past couple of months can be chalked up to what can only be described as the higher end of moderate life chaos.

We were dealt one of those very unexpected life circumstances that all the platitude writers tell you about.

It all started with a very odd group of events.

The short version:

In July JP decided to leave the job he'd been at for almost a decade.  He was presented with what was to be opportunities that were not available to him at his existing job.  He had been basically told that he'd capped out - he could stay for another 10 years or 50 years but he wasn't going to make any more money - so leaving that less than ideal situation* was a no-brainer especially because the new job offered a significant bump in pay.  Additionally, the new job put him close to Berlin, MD, where I was the long-term solo resident artist at the historic gallery at The Globe. We were intent and excited to sell our northern Delaware home and buy in southern Delaware; he would be closer to his new job and I would be closer to the place where my art had been selling very, very well for a good long time.  Everything really seemed to be lining up nicely.

Then the first bomb dropped.

Letter Writing

I've been working on the website for a lot of days recently and I'm excited for what I want to add to it this year.  Lots and lots of ideas.

One of the main things I'm really looking forward to adding is a stationery page filled with all kinds of writing stuff. I often refer to myself as old-fashioned because the older I get and the more the world gets nuttier, I truly believe that back then was better for a myriad of reasons, one of which was letter writing.  No one writes letters anymore - it's a terrible loss.  I'll let this quote explain why I feel that way:

“There is a charm to letters and cards that emails and smses (text messages) can’t ever replicate, you cannot inhale them, drawing the fragrance of the place they have been mailed from, the feel of paper in your hand bearing the weight of the words contained within. You cannot rub your fingers over the paper and visualise the sender, seated at a table, writing, perhaps with a smile on their lips or a frown splitting the brow. You can’t see the pressure of the pen on the reverse of the page and imagine the mood the person might have been in when he or she was writing it. Smiley face icons cannot hope to replace words thought out carefully in order to put a smile on the other person’s face, the pressure of the pen, the sharpness or the laxity of the handwriting telling stories about the frame of mind of the writer, the smudges on the sheets of paper telling their own stories, blotches where tears might have fallen, hastily scratched out words where another would have been more appropriate, stories that the writer of the letter might not have intended to communicate."― Kiran Manral

Do you save the emails people write to you?  The text messages?  Do you print them out, fold them, put them in a box so that weeks or years or decades later you can pull them out and read them again, remembering?  Probably not; or, at least, you don't save the majority of them, right?
Does anyone have a box filled with the text messages that showed the words shared between two people that they can show to their kids/grandkids one day?
When is the last time you sent someone a card for no reason?  When I was younger we did this all the time.  I still have letters from an old best friend that I pull out from time to time so I can travel back in time just for a little while.

If, when I add a stationery section to my website/online store, it influences even one or two people to slow down and pick up a pen and write something to someone, then I will consider myself and my business successful. I never started this business to become a millionaire.
There are plenty of other reasons people pursue their passion(s) besides money.

If you want to write to me the old-fashioned way, just let me know.


P.S.  I'll write back.