I’ve been off of Twitter since Elon Musk did his thing and I haven’t missed it one bit. Mostly because I was never really on it to begin with, it was more out of necessity for some things I was involved in, but every once in a while I would get to watch a live Twitter battle unfold and it was fun enough to take up part of my afternoon. Luckily, I am on Instagram, where screenshots of crazy Tweets go to die and I stumbled upon one today that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Full transparency, I Googled it to make sure it was real because it is so absurd, and yes, it was real, though it is a couple years old. I’m kicking myself trying to figure out how I didn’t see this back in 2021, but at least it made into my orbit now. Ladies and ladies, please see this Tweet from Candace Owens from March of 2021:
I have questions.
And actually, I have some concerns too. I mean, I’m no doctor, but this seems like it might be a prolapse issue that only some serious work on the pelvic floor could help.
In the least, the “popping” is concerning to me, but also intriguing? I thought my higher self knew how the world worked, but here I am, 41 years old and trying to figure out how I could possibly have missed popping my vagina into someone else’s vagina. I just feel shame. Forgotten about. Wronged.
I won’t assume Candace Owens thinks vaginas are detachable, but I will assume she thinks that vagina popping for power is a legitimate trade deal of the, what, United Nations? Chinese Government? OSHA? Who has the power? Who gets the power? And who can leverage the power in front of the world?
Questions. Just a lot of unanswered questions.
Most of all, why can’t I make my husband a sandwich?
For those who say you can’t live in a metro area because you’d miss “the wildlife,” listen to this tale of coyotes who routinely sing the song of their people beneath my bedroom window.
Technically, they are in my neighbor’s yard, but still they hoot and holler and there are babies, I can tell on account of the yelping pups who sound quite adorable trying to mimic their parents.
Luckily, we’ve been keeping Winnie and Duke with us at night by way of a gate at the top of the stairs, otherwise all hell might break loose when they go charging through the doggy door at 3 am only to be met with a pack of “real dogs” who know how to hold their own.
It’s possible this is an Atlanta-metro problem, on account of the lush green spaces (such pretty cities we have!) but the real problem of course is destruction of habitats, which in turn forces them to move closer to us for tasty food like cats. Best to put Mr. Whiskers on a leash, friends.
Like usual, my neighbors on NextDoor are all up in a tizzy about the coyotes because my neighbors on NextDoor are all up in a tizzy about everything, everywhere, all at once.
“We have to trap and kill them!”
“They will eat Fluffer Butt!”
“This is so scary, why won’t the city do something?!”
At this point I’ve rolled my eyes so far back in my head they are stuck. My mom was right.
I sympathize with people, I do, but also, like, umm, they are wild animals. Their homes have been destroyed most recently for the development of a subdivision promising 63 “moderately priced” homes “starting in the mid-800s!” in which you can, “Customize!”
I don’t get the housing market.
Don’t get me wrong, the houses are beautiful. I wish I could afford a million dollar house, but alas when I asked the bank if I could get a $5 million dollar loan, my customizations would include a helipad, a bowling alley, and a working Dunkin’ Donuts, they asked me for a paycheck stub to which I said, “Oh, I do a lot of things, but none of them pay actual money.” Then I stole a pen and ran away. #YourPensSuckWellsFargo
The coyotes however, are rightful owners of the land but without an appropriate FICO score they are forced to walk the streets at night, running in and out of backyards and terrorizing people so much they are forced to stuff pennies in a can and shake them from their porches. The people, not the coyotes.
Pennies. In. A. Can. #WholeNewTakeOnPennyCan
Someone also uses pots and pans, but don’t worry the “Coyote Authorities” told them it was safe.
Listen, I don’t have any real solutions here. I’m not a “Coyote Authority,” but I am watching that Nat Geo docuseries on Pablo Escobar’s hippos, so I AM an authority of invasive hippopotamuses taking over South American lakes and rivers. Maybe cocaine is the answer in some way?
I also know that this problem isn’t going away and that trapping and killing them is not a viable solution. What I don’t get is what the people want the city to do. Write them a citation? That’s sure to stop them in their tracks. No coyote wants to get caught up in a lengthy and expensive civil case that lasts for years. Or would it be criminal on account of the trespassing? I need legal advice.
All I’m saying is, I wish we had an unruly pack of alpacas rather than coyotes, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt. And I don’t know what the answer is, but can we please just stop with the pennies and start with keeping our domesticated animals inside at night. Or maybe I’m just saying this is a fact of city life and we should just suck it up and stop all the bitching?
Did you know makeup has an expiration date? I did not. Or rather I figured it did but never bothered to check until yesterday. I don’t even know what made me curious. I was looking for something in the bathroom and I stumbled across my CoverGirl foundation and I noticed a date stamped on it. It was expired. It wasn’t VERY expired, but still. I wondered how long ago I had bought it and shook my head from the intense workout I was giving my brain and I threw it in the trash. It’s no secret, if you’ve ever met me IRL, that I’m not a big makeup user. I go through phases. In my twenties I wore makeup pretty regularly, then after Jackson was born I gave up on that shit. Being a stay-at-home-mom will do that to ya. Then in my thirties I was back at it, then I stopped. Now I wear it sparingly, but as of late I have so many appointments and meetings and, because I’m a Band Booster Mom, I’ve had to talk in front of large groups of people, so I’m starting to think I might get back on the makeup bandwagon. But I need to ease in. So I went to Target last night for some foundation and that’s when my life fell apart.
Listen, it’s possible what I’m about to tell you is not surprising, but to me it was, how should I put this? Fucking nuts. I can’t begin to tell you the last time I was in a makeup store, or stopped at a makeup counter, or even meandered down the makeup aisle in a place like Target, but I did last night and what the hell?! Someone could have warned me! Although I suppose I should have known, considering there are entire YouTube channels devoted to learning how to apply foundation. What are those little sponge things? What’s a contour? Why wasn’t I taught this in Seventeen Magazine in 1996? Or was I and I just skipped right over it to take the “Which Seinfeld Character Are You?” quiz?
The aisle was not what I was accustomed to. I’ll admit that over the last few months I had noticed that Target was moving things, putting in brighter lights, gussying up that section, but I paid little mind since I rarely went in there. But on a Sunday night at 8:00 pm the lights from the makeup section were so bright! Who needs shit that bright? The answer is me. My old-ass eyes had a hard time trying to navigate through the foundation tints, for one. The last time I routinely bought foundation was probably 15 years ago and shit was not like this. Now I’ve bought foundation in the last fifteen years, but it’s usually when I’m on vacation and realize I don’t have any and my face is red and I run into Walgreens and grab some “Light” foundation and Tylenol PM for good measure. This shit. This shit. I dunno, it was different.
First of all, where is the CoverGirl? And I’m gonna stop right here and say that I use CoverGirl solely because I’ve always used CoverGirl. There’s no other explanation. My mom used it and when I bought my first foundation at the Leavenworth Wal-mart that’s what she told me to buy. Plus, they have this foundation with Olay in it and they are cruelty-free. Probably most of the makeup companies are nowadays, but back then that was way important to me and they were proudly touting it and 16-year-old Missy was all, “Hell yeah, cruelty-free!” Plus, there just weren’t a lot of make-up options for a girl like me in the late 90s in small-town Kansas. Everyone wore CoverGirl makeup and did their nails with Wet ‘n’ Wild. End of story.
That is not the case now.
Now as a grown-ass adult I have been inside Ulta and Sephora. I have lingered at the makeup counter at Macy’s and Nordstrom’s. I once even walked, on accident, into a high-end makeup store in New York City mistaking it for a candy store. I blamed it on Jackson once we got inside. I was all, “Oh, I’m sorry, my son thought this was a candy store (fake laugh, fake laugh).” And he side-eyed me fully knowing that I was the one who yelled, “I think that’s a candy store!” when we were walking past. The point is, I know that other brands exist. I know that they are probably magical and can treat your skin way better than CoverGirl, but creature, meet habit.
So, there I am last night, confused, looking all over like I’ve found myself at a rave and someone has just offered me a pill and I’m wondering if it’s worth it, when it occurs to me that they probably have cameras all over this bitch because of shoplifting and there is possibly some woman sitting in a backroom somewhere laughing at me trying to match skin tones with some brand called “Wiki Pixie Velour.” I was a mess. I was going back and forth between two sections for a good ten minutes trying to figure out why I couldn’t find my “match” when I realized those two brands weren’t even made for me, they were made specifically for woman who have way more melanin than I do. (Hand to head)
I was just so confused. So overwhelmed. Not only were there so many brands, but in each brand were so many different kinds of foundations. Then I started to panic. Do I need this primer? What’s a primer? I used a primer when I painted the wall in the guest room. Does my face need a primer?! So I put a primer in the cart, one that supposedly helps control red, which I suffer from. Then there was the actual foundation and all I kept thinking was, “WHERE IS THE COVERGIRL AGELESS WITH OLAY?” And then I had a thought: What if they don’t sell it anymore?! So I panicked even harder.
It was about this time that another desperate woman walked into the aisle. She was scanning, scanning, scanning. I could see it in her eyes. She was in scrubs. A nurse or a doctor from Emory. She has a mask on so I could only see her eyes, but I knew she felt the same. She was looking for a foundation and she didn’t know if they had it. I nervously reached for a lipgloss and turned the box over and over in my hands, while I watched her from the corner of my eye. She kept picking up bottles of foundation and putting them down. I wanted to scream, “STOP! You won’t find it! You’ll never find what you’re looking for and we are both going to die here in the makeup section at the Northlake Target! It’s over!” But she did find it. She found what she was looking for and she sped off and I looked down at the lipgloss in my hand and for the first time I read the box. It said, “For lips and cheeks” and I threw the devil lipgloss/blush back onto the shelf.
Was I in the twilight zone?
I walked then, into aisle after aisle. I’d been in all of them before. I’d lost track of time. I worried about Jackson and Jerimiah. I told them I was running to Target for foundation and almond milk. What had become of them? There were just so many options.
Pixie.
W3LL People
Arches and Halos
Honest Beauty
Tarte
The Lip Bar
Olive and June
Loveseen
Blk/Opl
Makeup Revolution
PYT beauty
This is not an exhaustive list of makeup sold at Target, but holy hell! Then, in the aisle that’s so far away it looked like it belonged with Epsom salts and adult diapers, I saw it: Drugstore Makeup! And there on the shelf was all of my familiar CoverGirl Ageless Foundation! And all the familiar suspects. Whew. Crisis averted.
BEHOLD!
Okay, sure, I was probably overreacting. But that’s what I do. And truth be told, I still walked out of Target with about $100 in makeup because I gave into the contouring blush and the eyebrow pencil and that damn primer, which was actually more money than a gallon of Sherwin-Williams primer, but I digress. The point is sometimes when we are forced to look change directly in the eyes, we wonder if we would look good with lash extensions or not. Then we overcome the Target makeup aisle.
Here’s to overcoming. I hope you overcome whatever your makeup aisle looks like today.
In the midst of all my other medical issues since turning 40 years old, I’d like to officially add one more diagnosis to the mix: Obstructive Sleep Apnea. That’s right, I have that disorder that is characterized by large people snoring loudly with full face masks chugging along as they sleep. Maybe you have a different idea of it, but that was mine. Remember that show “Mike and Molly” with Melissa McCarthy? I loved that show, but Mike had sleep apnea and he slept with those tubes and machines and I always thought, “Oh wow, how can anyone deal with that?” Hmpf. Let me back up.
All of my life, or at least as far back as I can remember, I have woke up in the middle of the night coughing and gasping for breath. When I was a kid my mom used to say I must have been having a bad dream, and I believed her. That made sense. Why else would I be crying saying I can’t breath as a child? As I got older and started to experience panic attacks on the reg, I decided that was what was happening when I would wake up shaking, coughing, crying, gasping for breath. I must be having panic attacks. This doesn’t happen all the time, I should add. It’s like once or twice a month on average, but over the last year it has ramped up to a couple times a week. It got to the point where I was afraid to fall asleep some nights because I thought it was night I would have a panic attack.
Fast forward to a month ago, I asked my doc for some sleep meds. I didn’t really elaborate, I just said I can’t sleep. She prescribed me Trazodone and we went on with our life. A month later I had to go back to see her and check in with the sleeping pills and that’s when I was like, “Oh sure it’s working, but I’m still waking up in a panic attack.” She looked at me funny then and told me to explain. I told her all about what I thought was a panic attack or maybe a nightmare? Then she looked at me a little bit like I was dumb and she was all, “That’s not how panic attacks work. It sounds like sleep apnea.” Then she sent me to Dr. Sharma, the sleep doctor at Emory’s Sleep Center.
Dr. Sharma’s office was able to get me right in (there was a cancellation the day I called, which is a lucky thing if you know Emory) and I went to see her the next day. I should say here that all those ideas of sleep apnea were sneaking into my head at this point. I legit wondered if I was “big enough” to suffer from this. I always just assumed this was people who were like hundreds of pounds, and while I am over 200 pounds, I’m not too far over and I’ve been actively working on losing weight the slow and steady method. That’s how dumb I was. (Face palm)
In Dr. Sharma’s office I saw the regular suspects. I saw elderly people, people who were maybe two hundred pounds bigger than me, but then I saw this really slim guy with a t-shirt on that read something about some marathon he’d run, and he was holding his mask, waiting to see his doctor. I was utterly confused. That’s when I got called back and schooled on obstructive sleep apnea by Dr. Sharma.
Turns out obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) can happen to anyone, even kids. That’s when I told her that this had been happening to me since I was a kid. OSA is about the way your airways react when your are sleeping. For some people it is the weight that lays against their chests, for others it is about the way your airways are made. When we sleep our body relaxes and if we have small or abnormally-shaped airways (or both, which is likely my case) they get too relaxed and they start to collapse onto each other restricting your airways and plummeting your oxygen levels. Then, because we aren’t getting enough oxygen, our brain alerts our body to wake us up and it does so in a panic gasping for the air we need to fill up our lungs. I was shaking along with her as she was telling me this because this all made sense to me. She told me it sounded like I have OSA, but that we’d have to do a sleep study to have an official diagnosis.
This was days before I was scheduled to go into surgery for my hip, so she suggested an at-home study because we could get that done that evening. She could send me home with all that I needed, though she said that sometimes an in-lab study is still needed if the results are inconclusive. I agreed to the in-home study and I was sent home with instructions on how to do it.
There are probably many methods and companies that help in this process, but I was given the “WatchPat One” information and equipment. This is one-time use equipment, paid by your insurance, that goes along with an app. You download the app, log in with a specific password from your doctor, and before you go to sleep you connect the “watch” and the finger monitor. This is what mine looked like.
It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and basically you just fall asleep and it tracks your oxygen levels and your heart rate all night. It can give false negatives and it can give inconclusive results, it is not near as advanced as the in-lab studies, which are where you spend the night in the sleep center hooked up to a millions machines, but in severe cases this can give a clear diagnosis and at this point Dr. Sharma suspected I had a severe case of OSA. I asked her at one point if losing weight would make it go away. I was still so stuck on my weight being the factor, and she said it might help some people who have moderate OSA, but in my case, she suspected it was so bad, had gone on for so long, that it wouldn’t matter much. Turns out she was right…
Four days after my sleep study she called to tell me that I have severe OSA and most likely have had it since I was a child. She said that my airways are probably small and abnormal and that only a machine would help me. She said that I needed to get on a machine ASAP and use it every night. She said all these years of dealing with this had the capacity to do a real number on my heart, and y’all know I don’t need anymore bad vibes with my heart.
Fast forward to this week and we are currently waiting on insurance to okay not a CPAP machine, which is what most people know, but an APAP machine. A CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine is used to pump oxygen into your body through the mask at a continuous pressure. You set the pressure and let it do its thing. I’m “special” though, because of course I am. *Hair Flip* I need a much more advanced (ahem, more expensive) machine known as an APAP (Automatic Positive Airway Pressure) machine, that meets my oxygen levels where they are and automatically adjusts how much air I need. This is because the “severe” part of my OSA is in my REM cycle and it’s pretty erratic. With the APAP my doctor won’t have to constantly monitor and change how much pressure I get, because it’s kind of impossible for us to know as it changes so drastically. The machine will constantly assess as I’m sleeping and do it for me.
Yay me.
Listen, I’m not sharing this to scare any of you. We all have trouble sleeping from time to time, but if you are like me and it is consistent trouble and you feel like you can’t breathe sometimes and it’s to the point where you are afraid to fall asleep, talk to your doctor please, regardless of your size, because OSA can have real problems on you health and if left unchecked it can get progressively worse.
I’ll work my way through this shame I feel, shame about lots of different things, and you just stay happy as can be that you aren’t me.
Today I was thinking about how I turn 41 in a few weeks and I was excited because it would appear that 40 hasn’t done me any favors, but the truth of the matter is, 40 is the year I got the nerve to deal with all these problems head on, to look for the answers, to ask the questions, to put my ignorance and my shame aside and try to get healthier, so I should be proud of myself. And I will be one day. Maybe I just need a good night’s sleep first.
Stay safe and sane, y’all.
M.
PS… This is what I had to see when I was at Dr. Sharma’s office and I thought it might give me nightmares, so I will pass it on to you. Just FYI, they weren’t looking at the patient’s chair before I got into the room. 🙂
We went to the Georgia coast for the first time last weekend. We kept meaning to get there, but every time we’d have a free weekend we’d fill it with yard work, or lounging on the couch all day, or going to Disney, there was nothing else. So, we decided to do it and just book the room and be committed. We also decided to take the dogs because ultimately we dream of being that family who travels everywhere with our dogs, only our dogs are shitheads with serious anxiety about most situations. So, we booked a hotel for two nights at a dog-friendly place, which generally aren’t the “nicest” hotels, but that’s okay we don’t want to be the people staying at a four-star hotel getting complaints because our dogs bark whenever someone walks by the door. People at two-star hotels are way nicer, and usually much more forgiving.
I should mention here that the Georgia coast is fucking lovely. The “fucking” is necessary there because that’s how lovely it is. I so want to tell y’all about St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island and Savannah, and I will, but first I have to tell you about something else. The flat tire. Well, the almost flat tire…
Friday we went to St. Simons Island where the dogs are welcome on that beach after 6:00 pm and they were actually pretty good doggos. Winnie, who is terrified of everything, was terrified of everything. But Duke, a much better traveler as he had two years of experience before Covid, was a very good boy except when other dogs won’t say hello to him he takes offense immediately, he shows no grace, and he gets pissed off and starts his barking and jumping on his hind legs like a goddamned madman. But that’s just normal Duke.
Our goal was to make it to three beaches: Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island Beach, and St. Simons. So with the last one checked off the list, Saturday morning we decided to head for Driftwood Beach, which as you may know is a beach littered with driftwood and it’s marvelous! See below.
On Saturday morning, we loaded up the beach buggy and the umbrellas and chairs, snacks and water, and we headed for the beach. The dogs came along because dogs are welcome all the time at Driftwood. As soon as we headed out Jerimiah looked concerned. He pulled into the Starbucks parking lot which was right across the street from our hotel (lucky us!) and said, “I picked something up in the tire.” He then got out of the car and checked the tire and saw a huge bolt sticking into the tread. Jackson got out and they conferred and the next thing I know we are at Firestone.
Now, this is where the story takes an interesting turn. We had obviously picked up a very large bolt in the tire and the tire was losing air. We all heard it. It was hissing air. But the tire sensor was not registering that we were losing air. I should mention here that last year we bought our first “nice” car. It’s an Audi Q7 and it is the most money we have ever spent on a car and for good reason. This car is top-notch nice and we love it. However, when all you have driven for most of your life are small Volkswagens (I know, I know Volkswagen owns Audi, but they are not the same) and Chevy pick-ups, let’s just say there are some things to learn about luxury cars and we usually learn them a little too late.
Like Saturday at the beach.
At Firestone they told us they couldn’t get us in until well after lunch. Then they told us to go to some other tire place down yonder. Meanwhile, the dogs are in the car, along with all our beach shit, it’s like 10 am on a Saturday in Georgia. It is hot, is what I mean to say, and we are all standing in a tire store parking lot wanting to be at the beach.
On the way to the other tire place, we decide to try Sam’s Club. We have taken our cars to Walmart to have the tires serviced before so we know they can usually get us in quickly and they are fairly inexpensive. So when we get to Sam’s Jerimiah goes in and Jackson and I start taking all the things from the back of the car to look for the spare. Meanwhile, there is hissing, but the tire is not going flat.
We get the back unloaded and voila! No spare. Just a can of “slime” and an air pump. What the what?
“Where’s the damn spare?” I squeak out.
Jackson says, “We don’t have one.”
Jerimiah comes back to the car and looks at us looking in awe at each other and he’s all, “Oh yeah, I was afraid of that.” Then he tells us that Sam’s Club can take a look at the tire in an hour. So we decide to sit there and wait. Meanwhile, Jerimiah takes the dogs for a walk around Sam’s Club and Jackson and I go inside to look for bug spray because the bugs at the coast are no joke. We do not question why there isn’t a spare, because what can you do?
Inside, I notice that there are no cars currently in the bays and three guys are just standing around. I figure I will go ask if they can squeeze us in a bit sooner and that’s when I meet Matt, the tire guy at Sam’s Club. Matt is very nice to me, although he was kind of a dick to Jerimiah. He tells me to have Jerimiah go ahead and pull it in. (eye roll) So I’m all, “Oh thanks! Because we don’t even have a spare!” And then Matt stops and looks at me.
“What kind of car is it?” He asks, very seriously.
“An Audi Q7.”
“Oh no, I can’t help you,” Matt says.
“Why not?”
“You’ve got run-flats.”
“Huh?”
Alright so some of you already knew where this was going because you’re not a dumbass like me. I had heard the term “run-flat,” but only for military vehicles. I had zero idea normal, everyday cars had run-flats. If you are kind of a dumbass like me (we really aren’t dumbasses, but you know, we kind of are) then you know that a run-flat is a tire that will not go flat. You can drive on them, up to 50 miles but probably a lot more, which is why we don’t have a spare tire. We have an air pump to pump up any air we have lost and then drive to the nearest tire place to get a new tire. Which in theory is no big deal, only when you are in Brunswick, Georgia on a Saturday in July and you have “very big, odd” tires, well, there is a problem.
You see, you have to replace a run-flat with a run-flat. And our tire size is 285/45/20, which I know by heart now having called about 15 tire places in a hot parking lot last Saturday. And they are hard to get. They have to be ordered.
We had a couple of options at that point. We could chance the tire back to Atlanta or we could spend a few more days at the coast and wait for a tire to get in or we could try to find someone who would patch the tire. Sam’s Club would not patch the tire. That is their company policy. Walmart, and many other places, will not patch a run-flat because they don’t want to take liability if something goes wrong. It’s an expensive tire and people will sometimes drive them until they actually do go flat just to avoid getting a new tire which makes the whole situation worse.
I get that this is way more than you wanted to know about car tires today and I salute you for sticking around.
At this point we were all hot and sweaty and a little bothered, but I gotta say, maybe it was the salt air, maybe it was the fact that we were all together, maybe it was because we were on vacation, but our spirits were still high. We never once got short with each other or complained. Whenever one of us would start to feel defeated we would look around the car and laugh a little. Honestly, this time was coming. We are road trippers and we are generally VERY lucky. We’ve never had any major problems with a car on a road trip (someone knock on wood) and the fact of the matter is this wasn’t a “major” problem, it just was a problem we had to conquer as a family.
We decided to drive down yonder to old what’s his names tire place. It was almost noon at this point and the temp was heating up. Turns out old boy closes up at noon on Saturdays. So, in another hot parking lot, we took the dogs out for a walk and started calling. Jackson called car dealerships around the area, who were less than helpful, if they answered. (The nearest Audi dealership was Jacksonville!) Jerimiah called random numbers he got from each tire place we had been to. I called tire shops like Mavis, Firestone, and Goodyear. No one had the tire, no one could get the tire quickly, no one could get us in. The Mavis in Savannah gave me another option: Just buy four new tires that are not run-flats.
“That seems extreme,” I said, as I looked out onto the massive yard in front of the tire shop while Duke took a big shit right into a ditch filled with water and mosquitos. “How much?”
“Ohh, I don’t have that size tire in stock.”
AHHHHHH!
The Firestone guy asked where we were.
“Brunswick.”
“Oh, you’ll need to go to Savannah to find a tire like that.”
The Goodyear guy in Savannah told me I’d have to go to Atlanta.
“That’s where we live. I know we can find 20s in Atlanta. Please help me get back to Atlanta!”
For his part, the Goodyear guy did try. But best he could do was get me a tire by Tuesday, which would be no big deal usually, we’d just stay a couple extra days and have a great time, but I had my pre-op appointments on Monday.
We all got back into the car. Jerimiah looked defeated. Jackson was sweating. The dogs were licking our faces. I said, “Jekyll told me to call Brunswick. Brunswick told me to call Savannah. Savannah told me to call Atlanta.”
We looked at each other.
“Well, let’s just go to the beach,” Jerimiah said. “We will figure it out.”
He started up the car and then the sensor came on: “Tire pressure is low in driver, left rear!”
Damn it.
That’s when I was like, “The Mavis lady told me to call RimThyme, which seems nuts. It’s like one of those places that sell spinning wheels. We don’t need spinning wheels. Or do we…”
That sparked an idea with Jerimiah who had been Googling tire shops all morning. He’d come across one called, “Rent a Wheel” in Brunswick so he called them and thirty minutes later our tire was patched and we were on our way to the beach! For real, “Rent a Wheel” saved us! They got us right in, were appalled no one would patch our wheel, “It’s just a normal tire inside,” the guy said, ” And besides, the bolt was in the tread, not the sidewall.”
Although when he pulled the bolt out of the tire he did say, “This is some Jeeper Creeper shit!” The bolt was actually massive and we still don’t know where we picked it up at, but check out this bad boy:
It was about three inches long and what even is that? An eye bolt? I dunno. In hindsight I should have taken a pic next to something for scale, but just know that the tire dude was accurate with his “Jeeper Creeper Shit” comment. If we lived there we’d think someone was out to get us! Damn it, maybe it was all the barking…
When the tire was patched and ready he told Jerimiah that would be $20. All Jerimiah had in cash was $25 so he gave it all to him and was like, “If I had more, I’d give it to you. You saved me today.”
Then we left the tire shop and promptly went to an ATM to pull out cash to take it back to the tire guy because the truth of the matter is, when you tell someone “If I had more…” in a situation like that, you just go and get more.
When Jerimiah returned with cash to “tip” him, he was so surprised and shook Jerimiah’s hand. He was the nicest person we encountered on our whole trip. Brunswick, Georgia, you hear me? We all know you have some issues (RIP Ahmaud Arbery) and you need to get your shit together, but please respect your “Rent a Wheel” people.
So yeah, that was our Saturday morning on vacation. We took the dogs to Driftwood, we walked, we played in the water, I cut myself when I fell into a hole with rocks (Driftwood is not a swimming beach, it’s a walking beach, for future reference) and then we took the dogs back to the hotel, went swimming for a bit in the pool, then got them situated in the kennel and went out Saturday night for dinner (Tortuga Jack’s on the water), mini golf, ice cream, and an evening stroll on Jekyll Island, where we were looking for the Loggerheads, but instead found a family of deer eating Loggerhead eggs. (shocked face!) It was a lovely evening and at dinner, Jerimiah thanked us for being calm, cool, and collected throughout the whole ordeal and we thanked him for the same. And also for being the kind of guy who goes back to the ATM.
The truth is, when Jerimiah and I were sitting in the car trying to figure out what we were going to do, both of us were transported back to our childhoods. Both of us have memories of flat tires–no run flats in sight–and how our parents handled that situation, and well, it wasn’t good. I remember being afraid we would be stranded because my mom didn’t have the money to replace a tire and Jerimiah remembers his dad flying off the handle, which was common, he was a raging alcoholic who flew off the handle at anything and everything. And we were proud of ourselves and at each other for pushing ourselves to be better versions of the parents we had, to be far removed from that generational shit that has the potential to bring us down, for being the kind of people who laugh when there’s nothing else you can do, and well, for buying an Audi, it was just a smart decision.
Stay safe and sane and try not to get yourself into any jeeper creeper shit, y’all.
Whew, it’s been a whirlwind kind of summer so far. I haven’t even been here on the old blog in several months and it shows. It’s looking a little shabby around here. Sorry about that, but thank you for your continued support even in my absence. I’ve received at least two comments telling me that they could optimize my platform or something like that and one more calling me an “asshole,” which I mean, I should take offense to, but it is slightly accurate as of late so Imma let it slide.
Well then, how the hell have you all been? Good I hope, all things considered. I have nothing enlightening to say today, only here to catch you up on some things: 1. My dogs are still crazy. 2. It’s hot as shit in Atlanta right now and 3. I’m officially finished with grad school, all school actually, and at the end of the month I graduate, earning my second masters degree, but honestly this is the good one.
Yep, it’s official. My 150-page thesis, a collection of short stories set in the Ozarks, is off to the Trappist Abbey Monks to be bound, my signature pages are signed, all assignments are completed and as far as the world is concerned I’m officially: Melissa Goodnight, MFA. Though because of my friend Andrew and his absurdly wonderful outlook on life, I will only sign my emails, Melissa Goodnight, MFnA because really that’s more inline with the truth of things.
There is actually a ton more going on in my life than finishing up grad school, but there’s a ton going on in everyone’s life right now so I’m gonna spread my shit like a Roomba that got hold of the puppy’s accident, that is to say I’ll gonna make a trail of shit over the next several weeks to keep you all updated.
And also, you are welcome for that visual.
Wow, I really did miss you all and I’m super glad to be back. Back to having free time to write on my blog, back to reading what I want to read, and back to being able to make up outrageous lies for how to get out of social obligations since I can’t blame it on thesis anymore…
So as usual, stay safe and sane, y’all! Let’s talk again soon.
Please don’t say that you don’t agree with “sexualizing” children in relation to Florida’s “Don’t say gay” bill, because if you are a parent you know that since the age of like two, people have been sexualizing your kids, saying to you things like, “Ohh, she’s gonna break hearts!” Or “Ohh, he’s going to have so many girlfriends!”
Adults actually asked my KINDERGARTNER if he had a girlfriend. Repeatedly.
Adults actually asked my second grader if he thought “blonde girls are the prettiest!”
Adults consistently ask my middle schooler if he has kissed his girlfriend.
Are. You. Kidding. Me.
Society “sexualizes” children all the damn time in their clothes, their hair/makeup, the way they are taught to look at the other gender, etc.
So say what you really mean, “Gay people make me uncomfortable and I don’t know what to do with that emotion so I have to freak out so everyone knows I don’t like it.” Or something like that.
I actually know parents, today, who think this way, say things like, “Kids shouldn’t be ‘dating’ or discussing sex in school, that’s not why they are there,” then want their sons and daughters to go to school dances or let their kids wear attention-seeking clothes.
What do you actually think your child is talking about in middle school with their friends?! Newsflash: Sex is a topic, whether you like it or not.
Stop.
You look just as ridiculous as the adults out there sexualizing our kids. It’s bigoted and it’s hate-filled rhetoric. It’s from far-right republican leaders who lack critical-thinking skills.
Don’t be that.
Do better.
Lastly, some of y’all need reminded to love your kids for whomever they are, whomever they turn out to be. Gay, straight, trans, gender fluid, a high-school graduate, a PhD candidate. Love your kids and make sure that they know it’s okay to be who they are in their hearts.
I’ve been eking out work these days. Like squeezing the water out of a wet swimsuit kinda stuff, y’all. Like every time I think I can get it all out in one squeeze, I can’t. Where does the water come from?! Don’t tell me, I know it has something to do with the type of material the swimsuit is made out of, but Christ I’d like for the water to just come out all at one, you know?
No, you probably don’t know because you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m talking about my thesis, y’all because of course I am! What is the deal with this thesis? Why can’t I write right now? Do I need to just drop everything and go to DisneyWorld? Well, the answer to that is yes, always yes, but won’t that just be procrastinating? But isn’t that what I’m doing by writing this blog about how I can’t write?
Here’s the thing, I sit down to write a full short story, maybe a 10-pager, hopefully a 20-pager, and I all I get is about five pages. That’s it. I squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and it dribbles out. This is highly unusual for me, that’s why I’m telling you this. Normally I think about a story for a few weeks, then sit down and it pours out of me. But I have been thinking about TWO stories for OVER a month now and nothing happens when I sit down. Just drip, drip, drip…
Maybe the stories have no merit? Maybe they suck and I know it subconsciously? Or maybe I’m just so freaked out by these deadlines that I am sabotaging myself? Or maybe I think my thesis advisor is tired of my shitty work? Or maybe, just maybe, I’m afraid of the work I know they will take and I don’t want to do it?
All these questions.
All this water.
Send help. But not a life raft. I’m still on dry land.
You know how I’ll say those things to your family and friends that you want to, but feel like you can’t because they will freak out on you? Well, this one is for you! Share if you need to, after all you didn’t say it, I did!
I love you.
M.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Friends, this holiday season remember that if you are openly against the COVID vaccine or masking, that feeling you’re feeling, the one that feels oppressive, it’s criticism. That’s all it is, old-fashioned criticism. You’re not being “victimized,” you’re being criticized.
Criticism sucks, but you’ll get used to it.
If you are being ostracized or you are at risk of losing your job or unable to attend various engagements because of your vaccination status or for refusing to wear a mask, that’s on you. It’s a choice you’re making, and you will be criticized for it. But again, you’re not being “victimized,” you’re being criticized.
This is how public health has always and will always work. Your “personal freedoms” are not “on the line,” you very much have a choice, but your choice is unpopular and frankly, unhealthy for you and those around you, so you’re being criticized and that criticism is making you act nuts. Some of y’all are walking around singing Kid Rock lyrics all of a sudden. SMH.
The good news is, it happens to the best of us! You’ll be fine. Take some deep breaths. Embrace those feelings, grow and change. Call your therapist. Get a therapist! Adapt and overcome.
Or start a group chat with other anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers and cry together there, cause frankly we are all tired of hearing about it.
Well I did it, I wrote my first book review and it wasn’t too bad! I mean it was horrible on account of how stressed I was about getting it right, about doing good for the book (which I LOVED) and all the things, but you know, it was good in the end. While I was writing the review last month Jackson asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was writing a book review. When he looked confused at me I explained that my professor knew someone who needed a book review and the book was about The Ozarks, where we lived for ten years, where Jackson was born actually, and she thought of me. That I had been nervous but that in the end my professor told me to, “Be brave!” and I took her advice. And now here I was stressing about this review, even though the book was great, full of history and funny anecdotes and deep, deep research on the place we loved/hated to live. He looked at me, shrugged and said, “Oh so you wrote a book report. It’s no big deal, Mommy. You’ll get an A.”
🙂
I hope I got an A.
You can read the review at the University of Mississippi Press’ book page (published with the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger) and you can buy the book here if you want to go on a wild ride.
Remember to support local, indie publishers and booksellers. And remember to Be BRAVE!
This morning turned out to be one of this mornings where you are reminded that you are human, that other people are human, and that as a parent, you are doing the best you can, and so are your kids. Jackson was all packed and ready to go on his trip this weekend for the Technology Student Association, when I kissed him goodbye and told him to have a great day. Then Jerimiah was headed to the office for an in-person meeting, I swear he only has to go in when there is something chaotic afoot, and he asked me if I wanted coffee because he was going to stop by Starbucks because duh.
Side Note: Our favorite coffee here is a little, local shop called The Corner Cup but it’s on Main Street and they are filming a movie (The Out-Laws for Netflix) on Main Street so we’ve been avoiding it, but then I found out Pierce Brosnan was in it along with that guy from Pitch Perfect, you know the guy he was in The Righteous Gemstone too, and now I kinda wanna go check it out, but that’s neither here nor there.
Okay back on track, Missy!
Jerimiah takes Jackson to school and on the way Jackson orders our Starbucks so it’s ready for Jerimiah to pick up after he drops him off. So he does and as he is headed to grab said Starbucks Jackson texts and is all, “Where is my Covid form?” Sc, sc, screech! So because we live in the time of Covid, there was a parent form to fill out that basically said I know we live in the time of Covid and still I am allowing my child to be in the care of his school district on this trip and if my child were to get Covid, I would not place blame on the school system. Okay, Jerimiah signed the form last night and handed it to Jackson who also had to sign it and told him to stick it in his bag when he was done. Guess which step he didn’t do?
So Jerimiah calls me just as I’m texting him to bring me a yummy bakery item too because it’s Friday and I can handle it. He’s all,
“Is there a Covid form on the kitchen island?”
“Yes.”
“Ahhhh, son.”
“You need this, yeah?”
“Yes. And the coffee is ready and I have a meeting at nine.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I dunno. The Audi needs gas and I won’t have time to stop at the gas station, Starbucks, and the school.”
“Can you scan this Covid form?”
“No, he said he needs it.”
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Go get the coffee.”
So I load up the dogs into the Beetle Bug because we can’t leave them unattended, you know on account of the Oreo Situation. Oh wait, I haven’t told y’all about the Oreo Situation. Shit. Don’t worry about it, Duke is fine. He didn’t even get his stomach pumped he vomited it all up on the way to the emergency vet. Kind of like me and that time I tried to do 18 shots of tequila for my 18th birthday. Moving on…
So as Jerimiah headed back to the house to get the form, Jackson texted again and was all,
“Ohhh, I left my watch at home.”
Normally this would be no big deal but “my watch” is an Apple Watch and the way he communicates with me when he “can’t” communicate with me, ya dig? Like when he’s in class, or in this case of this weekend, when he’s 330 miles away in a conference and I get the urge to check in on him, at least he can give me a thumbs up that he got the message from his watch and I know he’s alive. Listen, I’m not proud of my worry and anxiety, but we all make do okay?
So Jerimiah gets back to the house before I have even coaxed Winnie into the Beetle Bug. She hates the Beetle Bug and that makes sense, it’s a little car and she’s not a little dog, she’s more an Audi Q7 dog and she knows it and we know it, but what can you do? So I have the Covid form and I’m begging Winnie to get into the Beetle Bug when Jerimiah pulls in the carport and is all,
“Well he forget his watch too.”
“OMIGOD! THIS IS A CLEAR SIGN FROM THE UNIVERSE THAT HE IS TOO YOUNG TO BE TAKING OFF WITH SCHOOL TO GOD KNOWS WHERE TO DO GOD KNOWS WHAT!”
I may have overreacted. To be fair, I still did not have my coffee and at this point I did not know if I would ever have it again.
So I go inside to look for his watch while Jerimiah gets the dogs into the Audi, which was no problem because of their aforementioned bias against the Beetle Bug, and then he comes inside and knows right where the watch is and I want to scream, but instead he’s all,
“Why don’t you just come with me?”
“Fine.”
At the school we see Jackson walking aimlessly around with his suitcase while his classmates are either: loading the bus or on the phone with their own parents trying to figure out how to get the damn Covid letter that they forgot. To be fair we just got the Covid letter yesterday, so that’s on the teachers. I’m texting him that we are behind the bus. And he’s all,
“Where are you?”
And I’m,
“WE ARE BEHIND THE BUS.”
Le sigh.
He runs over all frantic and I give him the form and his watch and the dogs whine because at this point we had to roll all the windows up in the car because there was a Great Dane crossing the street and Duke lost his shit and the Great Dane’s mom gave me a glare like I need to control my dogs and BITCH WHO ARE YOU?!
Right-io.
Then Jackson is about to run off and I say wait, let me get a picture of you and he’s all,
“Oh my gosh, they are LOADING the BUS!”
And at the same time Jerimiah and I go,
“Oh, wow, wow, wow. Oh no. Attitude, bruh.”
Then Jackson is all,
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This was just all my fault and it’s a hectic day…”
And we are like,
“Dude, it was a mistake. It’s okay, things like this happen. We are not frustrated.”
Which was a lie cause I was legit frustrated but also I did not want him to get yelled at before he gets on a coach bus to head four hours away from me, you know. And Jerimiah and I were in agreement on this. Like there’s no point in ruining out kid’s trip, even just his fun bus ride with his friends, over something silly like this. And we said we loved him and we sent him on his way. Then we picked up our coffee and we calmed each other down and when we got home the dogs were NOT rewarded with a pup cup, and Jerimiah drove the Beetle Bug to work because still no gas in the Audi, and I had a realization:
I’m not sure how other people do it without a kind, loving partner. A real one. One who doesn’t react in anger, like ever. One who’s first reaction is always to listen and understand. A partner who is there through these hectic mornings. Who knows how to keep you calm so you don’t fly off the handle. Who is in 100% synced in your parenting. Who knows that our shit, our shit is nothing compared to keeping our kid physically and emotionally safe at all times, even when those times look like they did this morning.
So all that to just be an appreciation post about my partner? Yeah, kind of. And also as a reminder that if you partner is not 100% your partner, you deserve better. Much better.
Whew. I’m thinking I might go back to bed now. Let’s all get some rest today. Or at least try to with our kids so far away!
Oh also, Jackson texted to say that we could have just scanned the Covid form. So there’s that.
How y’all been? Good, I hope. I had a great week last week on account of it being the Welty Symposium at my school and my professors being really busy with that. Seriously. And I didn’t need to attend because I did it last year and I’m doing short residency elsewhere in the spring so it was sort of like a week off and now that it’s Monday again and school is back in proper session I’m feeling ehh about the whole thing. Especially my thesis, which I managed to convince myself last week was a flaming bag of dog shit and I should just give up. Just give up, that’s what I was thinking when I woke up this morning from a dream wherein my thesis advisor Zoomed me to tell me that my thesis was “dog shit.” So there you are. A nice, relaxing week where I felt like I worked ahead, got some stuff done (including my very first book review that is due this week! Eekface) and then this week I immediately fell right down a negativity hole. What gives? I dunno. But this isn’t new.
That’s why I hope y’all are doing good. Because I know you can have a fine and dandy time one minute, then the next be all, “This is bullshit, why even do this?!” I know because it happens to me all the time and when it happens to me I get all these feelings tangled up together that I can’t seem to hash out. There’s the guilt for sort of “wasting” my time last week. No, I didn’t. I did a lot of stuff, but “it’s never enough,” so says my inner critic. Then there is shame for my brain thinking this way, like why don’t I have better control over my brain, ya know? Then there is the inevitable slide down the sadness wall where even petting my dog for twenty minutes while she tells me how pretty I am will not help. Bleh.
Has this happened to you? I hope it hasn’t, but if it has just know you’re not alone. Having a great week, a relaxing week, a week where you are free to do things on your own time, even sometimes a vacation, then coming back to the normal routine can make you feel ehh or bleh or ahhhhh! Then that makes you feel like an untitled brat who lacks gratitude. It’s normal-ish, I think, but I’m no doctor. I also know that these ahhhh, or bleh, or ehh feelings don’t last long. That doesn’t help when you’re in the thick of it, but it might help tomorrow or the next day.
So okay, what can you do if you feel this way? Make a blog post so you don’t feel so alone? Sure. Text a friend a funny meme to make you and them smile? Yep. Take a nap? Of course, sleep always helps. But really you just need to ride out those feelings. Trust me, I speak from experience. It’ll be better one day soon, until then keep doing what you need to be doing this week, keep checking those items off the old to-do list, and revisit these feelings when you have accomplished something, anything really, I’m currently doing one, just one, load of laundry to check “laundry” off my list for the day. Then I’m going to email my thesis advisor and tell her that I’m spiraling and hope she has some kind words for me, then I will maybe watch an episode of Teen Mom OG or Ted Lasso, depending, and you know what, things will be brighter when I wake up tomorrow. Or they won’t and we will try again.
I hope you are having a great day and if not I hope you find something fun and helpful to change it.
The other day on my sobriety post I promised to talk about how people like to pass judgement on my “dietary” choices all the time. Generally it’s because they see me, see I’m fat, and assume I am doing nothing about it and eat snacks all the time. Ho hum. This is true for a vast majority of people, others make assumptions about their eating habits because everyone thinks their choices are the best. Some people are like, “Yay for you for eating more veggies!” while others are like, “Oh my goodness, you still eat cheese, that’s disgraceful.” Okay, assholes, who asked you? Even though I no longer eat meat I still do it, I still pass judgement, not about people who eat meat, about other stupid things. Like when I see a kid’s lunchbox full of “snacks” I’m like, “Really?” Like how do you let your kid eat only snacks all day? See? I’m judgey, we all are. Maybe they can only afford that kind of food? Or maybe that kid will refuse other food and at home the parents will have that fight, but they’ll be damned if they will put that fight on the teachers at school? Or maybe they grew up poor like me and learned unhealthy habits that are super fucking hard to break and they are trying desperately to stop the cycle with their children, but they slip-up sometimes? Or maybe they don’t fucking care and their kids metabolism, their metabolism, is great and I should just mind my own fucking business? Sure, sure. It’s all possible. So I should mind my own fucking business.
Anyway, I don’t want to be accused of hating snacks! I love snacks! Always have (see above tangent). But when Jackson was small we *literally* (I put the asterisks there to make sure you know I actually mean *literally* as it is supposed to mean, not as figurative language) we *literally* did exactly what our pediatrician told us to do with him for fear that if we didn’t he would learn our horrendous eating habits. We did not feed him “real” food until he was a year old. We introduced baby food when she told us we should and we started with vegetables only. I bought organic peas and mashed them up and gave them to him. We only supplemented breast milk when we had to. When he turned a year old we *literally* (again) threw the bottle away on his birthday and switched him to sippy cups with only milk (2% because “not every baby needs whole” the pediatrician said) and water. No juice. No soda. No nothing. 2% milk and water.
When he started eating “real” food we NEVER made him “clean” his plate. Eww. That is what we had to do when we were kids, umm, weight problems because you don’t understand how to read the signals from your stomach? Youbetcha! We also never made meal times a big deal. We ate as a family at the table. That was our only grand gesture. And we did eat at the table, not in front of the television ( and our families legit thought we were weird for it, they judged us a lot.)
Whew. It was tough. Really tough. But it paid off. Jackson is totally a teenager who stops eating when he is full. He will walk away from a cheeseburger (his absolute favorite meal) after taking two bites if he picks up on that signal from his stomach. He will ask the server for a box and he will take it home to eat it later or the next day, whenever he’s legit hungry again. I am in awe of him each time he does this, I’m like, wow. I think I did that. I mean I can’t do it to save my life (I’m learning, Jerimiah and I have even been splitting meals when we eat out just to help when we can’t pick up on our signals) but just wow, you know.
What’s always been funny to me though, is that people see Jerimiah and me and then they look at Jackson (who has always, despite all the work we have done, been in the 90th percentile for weight, like since he was born, but he’s never been overweight) and they assume things about us. They assume we don’t make our kid eat healthy. They assume, when they see him with a soda or a bag of Cheetos that this is the way we live our life and it used to bother me something fierce (I guess it still does to some extent cause I’m telling y’all about it) but lately, probably because my own relationship with food is changing, I’m realizing I gotta care much less about that shit. Much less.
I think it’s just that I don’t know how to navigate this world without being a fat person and because of that, because of how the world treats fat people, I have all this shame around what I eat and what my kid eats and how I move around in this body. I look at “normal” sized people and think, wow, they must have this eating thing all figured out, but no, they don’t. They just have better genes, or grew up eating veggies first, they aren’t coming into middle age with this weird deficit that Jerimiah and I are. We have to start considering everything we eat, all we do to keep ourselves healthy because of where we are coming from, meanwhile some people just don’t. They don’t have to constantly talk about it or think about it, and when we do it makes them uncomfortable. That must suck for them, but not as much as it sucks for us.
I know a person who 100% drinks hard liquor most nights of the week, but who has 100% told me that I don’t eat enough fruit. Did I want to slap the shit out of that person, sure? Did I? No, it was a family reunion and that felt like it would cause too much drama, you know? But that was old Missy, I’d like to have that convo again…
The point is I have changed. We do that as we grow. Well some of us do. And when we grow we make changes based on new information. This year I learned who my real father was through a DNA test. I also learned that he died when I was 9 months old from a massive heart attack. That’s some new info that will fuck you up. It sure did me. I learned too that he drank beer every day of his life and that he often threw them back with a cheeseburger. Eek face.
But I can’t just flip a switch overnight. I can’t unlearn 40 years of nonsense, so it takes time, and I have to give myself the time to get there. There are no quick fixes with this. Sure I could get weight-loss surgery or take some kind of pill, but we all know that won’t touch the root of my problems. So here I am. Blogging about this all to you, eating veggies, listening to people tell me how they think I should eat and live to be healthy, and trying to smile through it all, but I think we all know I won’t be able to sustain that either.
So consider this my warning. I don’t want your opinions on the way I eat or what I feed my family and you won’t get mine. In fact, just assume I don’t want your opinion about anything. If I do, I’ll ask. Otherwise, walk on by me while I’m eating my snacks or my veggies. It will be safest for all those involved.
I’m not sure why I can sit down every day now and hammer out a blog post, but I am incapable, quite suddenly, of writing for my thesis. Like in the first month of school I wrote two, TWO short stories. I guess I took that for granted because now here I am, sitting alone in my quiet house (Jackson is back at school in person and Jerimiah is at the office for his yearly budget reviews) and I still cannot write anything new for thesis. Meanwhile, I am here on my blog complaining to y’all. I guess it’s just the nature of the beast, yes? I don’t have to think much here. Y’all offer me a “no-thinking zone.” That’s not a bad thing, it’s not, it’s a really good thing. I can just log on here and share something ridiculous, whatever I am thinking about that day, and usually someone will find goodness in it, even if it’s just me blabbing my mouth about conservative republicans. Thanks, y’all. I appreciate you.
Maybe that’s all I have in me to say today. Thank you for being you, for reading or at least skimming, and for nodding your head in agreement or maybe shaking at my absurdity. Either way, it’s important for me to know that someone, out there in the ether, is having the kind of day where they need to just sit and read the random thoughts of someone else. It’s always good to think about how humanity works in that way.
Maybe my next post will be more concrete with themes and pictures and funny one-liners, maybe it will be more bitching about Mitch McConnell, who’s to say, but I’m glad someone out there will be into it.
Take care of yourselves today, won’t you? Lighten up. I’ll try to take my own advice.
Why are you back on the blog yet again today, Missy? Don’t you have a life anymore? The short answer is no, I never have, the long answer is that I missed y’all so much and I know that you missed me too and I just have a lot to say right now. The honest answer is that I have 20 pages of thesis due, and a book to read so I can write a review on it, and so obviously I’m taking time to write on my blog again. Procrastination at it’s finest, if you will.
Actually today I’m just logging on to say that I am like 30+ days sober. No wine, at all. No White Claws even! Certainly no hard liquor or beer. Not on vacation, not even when I am in the hot tub waxing political (which is how we spent all of 2020). Matter fact, last time Jerimiah and I were in the hot tub bad-mouthing conservative republicans we drank Vitamin Water. Gotta stay hydrated!
We didn’t set out to do this, it just sort of happened. We’ve been tapering off of any alcohol or wine for several months now. In fact, since my liver enzymes first started showing as elevated back in May of this year (and I just recently tested positive for a liver-related autoimmune disease) I have been conscious of how much I am drinking. My liver specialist says an occasional glass of wine is okay, and maybe I’ll end up there eventually, but for now it’s not feeling like the thing to do.
While in Mississippi for residency this year I did not try to keep up with friends and I drank no hard liquor. Everyone was incredibly kind and gracious about it. While vacationing this summer I tried to stick to mainly hard seltzer waters and at no time during my vacations have I been totally drunk (even though Rachel tried to get me there! Damn you and your Fireball, Rachel!) Since my 40th birthday I have had nothing at all that contains alcohol. Though you know I will never turn down a ButterBeer! 🙂
Jerimiah and I are both attempting this sobriety thing, and he’s done just as well. He’s been in several social situations lately where he was expected to drink along with everyone else and he chose not to. It’s important to note here that we are both social drinkers. We don’t struggle with sobriety like some people and we recognize that staying sober is much harder for others. We see y’all trying and we support you. We love you and are here if you ever need an ear.
This is also a no-judgment zone! We would never ask our family and friends to abstain from drinking around us, and if you come over for dinner I promise to have wine available if that’s what you prefer. We totally support your decision to drink responsibly, and this has only been easy for us because we have never been dependent on alcohol. So take all I say about how “easy” it is with a grain of margarita salt. This is the perspective I am coming from.
We decided to try sobriety partly due to my elevated liver enzymes, partly due to not wanting to feel like shit the day after drinking a bottle of wine, and partly due to setting a better example for our kid. It was mainly me, and Jerimiah being the good partner he is said, “I’ll do it too.” I told him to use me as an excuse anytime he needs. Men can be real bitches to each other when one doesn’t want to drink a beer with the group. #ToxicMasculinity
I’m putting this info out here for several reasons: 1. When people talk about things openly it makes it easier, less taboo. 2. For people who have been considering the sober life for awhile to know it’s not so bad, if I can give up red wine, you can definitely do it! 3. Hopefully y’all will see this and the next time we go out you won’t be all, “Why are you not drinking, Missy?!” Then I can just say, “Wow, you really don’t read my blog posts, huh?” (insert winky face)
Speaking of going out, we’ve found club soda and a lime makes us feel like part of the mix, and prevents people from mocking us, people do that, in case you don’t know. And if you are trying the sober thing and people mock you, please don’t take offense, it’s just them projecting. We used to do it too, or at least talk about sober people behind their backs. But really it was because we felt judged, as if someone else’s sobriety had anything to do with us. Don’t be like the old us, y’all. Grow and change.
The truth is I only drank in social situations to feel better, to talk easier with people, to feel like I wasn’t so awkward or forward. And because, well, that’s what you are supposed to do as an adult, right? Mommies drink wine in groups and complain about their kids and husbands, right? (Yeah, I was feeling weird about all of that, probably because I have zero to complain about with my kid and husband.) But now I’m realizing it doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t want to hang with me because I’m awkward or blunt or don’t drink, cool, more time in my pjs on my couch with my family and doggos! Win/Win! And I will still listen to other mommies complain about husbands and kids, I’ll just do it sober. If I’m ever invited again…Hey, no hard feelings if I’m not!
Still, there are bound to be people who won’t support you, there are people who won’t support me. They will poke fun at me, they will ask how “healthy” it is to take anti-depressants to get through the day. (I think I’m pretty open about how I handle my mental health, yes? In case you forgot, I take daily anti-depressants and the occasional anti-anxiety med along with bi-weekly therapy visits with Patsy, my saint of a therapist. I say “occasionally” about the anti-anxiety meds because I am only prescribed 30 Klonopin pills at the lowest dose possible, every three months so I have to make them count. I usually take a half of one to help me fall asleep at night or when I’m in a crowd of people. That’s also why people chose to drink a glass of wine! I’m just choosing to do it differently. To each their own, it’s all substances we are putting in our body to make our brains feel better. Right-io!)
People will also no doubt jump on board to remind me, yet again, that I’m fat so I’m not living the most “healthy” lifestyle. Ho hum. I’ve had so many people talk about my “dietary changes” in the last six months only because I stopped eating most meat (I’m pescatarian now) for no reason other than to make themselves feel better. You know those people, the ones that try to pass shade on what you are eating, without actually saying it. Like, “Well meat is protein and we all need protein.” Yes’m meat is protein, you know what else is, broccoli. But my “unhealthy” eatings habits and he way people react to them is another post, I promise. And again it just boils down to them projecting their own insecurities onto me. Making themselves feel better about their own choices. They will do the same to you. Ignore the haters, that’s all you can do.
Anyway, if you’re a drinker keep on keeping on, responsibly of course, and if you’ve been living the sober life, yay for you! Consider us part of the team now. And if you are considering it, jump on board with us now, we will support each other!
Melissa Goodnight 
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