Thursday, March 26, 2020

Time for a little Love and Levity

So, seems there's no better time to write than now.  I can't really work that much, my internet has been down for 9 days, and there are hours of the day to kill.  And you, too!  Why not kill some with me?

Over the last few years, I've been working, having a teenager (which is a full time job in itself) going to school, finishing school, and I've watched every single Law and Order episode in order*.  That's the update.  Easy.

I've been checking Instagram regularly, and Facebook less regularly, and its all doom and gloom.  This person dies, this other person is sick, people are breaking the shelter-in-place rules, there are still drunk drivers, yada yada.  I realize this is a very weird time, but I'm really appreciating, and focussing on, the stories of great love and caring, of humans reaching out to other humans, and I'm trying to laugh as much as possible.  There are still dicks out there, no question, but if you want to focus on the positive, there's lots to focus on.  The same can't be said for lots of other stressful times, so there's that.

For instance: The bear hunts that are happening all around the country: People put teddy bears in their windows for the little kids taking walks with their parents to find, going on a bear hunt.  I love that.  I don't have any teddy bears, only stuffed dogs; that'll work, right?
The town just south of mine has a nightly howl at 8 pm every night.  It made the news and has transformed into not only howls but cheers for front line workers.  I love this.
The Nextdoor app, where there seem to be so many complainers and tattle tales and coyote vigilance groups, is bursting with people offering to help immunocompromised people with groceries or other needs.  If you're White Pants, you start a revolution to make sure that the people working at your gym still get paid while they can't work, but while your membership checks are still being cashed.  This is community at its best: think globally, act locally.
I love that the restaurants have set up outdoor pick up areas in front of their businesses, sometimes even drive up food take out, and you can take out cocktails!  How awesome is that??
There are so many creative and bored people on YouTube, and Twitter and IG doing so many funny and entertaining things.  Musicians are giving free concerts, comedians are doing live sets (stop futzing with your hair people, you look great)  My personal favorite right now is Michael Franti's Stay at Home World Tour; he is "stuck" in Bali with his wife and son and some others, and if you watch him and dance along, you just cannot feel bad.  Thank you for that, Michael!

Here are a few ways in which I have been completely amazing, in addition to watching every law and order episode in order: I wrote a thank you note and put $20 in it for the grocery store check out clerk and she cried.  Tipped the McDonalds drive through guy $20, he looked shocked.  Made masks by hand with L, using the video from Deaconess Hospital in Indiana; had a friend with some elastic, but I could only make three.  I have stayed home, and only gone out for necessary stuff (which includes McDonalds.)  I am supporting the economy by having bought Crocs and some new pajamas.  I'm pretty awesome.

But I'm also incredibly grateful for the following: My parents are ok right now.  My husband and kid are ok right now. My friends are ok right now. I have enough food to eat, enough toilet paper (and I didn't hoard any) My family continues to have a salary and be able to work from home so that we can continue to pay our mortgage and support our local eateries and hand out some good tips.  It's sunny out.  I have dogs who don't give any shits about the pandemic, and only care when Gary, our local squirrel,  comes to torture them.  Things are blooming and there are bees, I have a working washer and dryer (knock wood.) I haven't watched all the Law and Order Criminal Intent episodes so I have that to look forward to.  There are funny people on Twitter and Insta, and hundreds of picture of cute animals.  I can be bra-less all day!

See?  There's lots to be happy about.  It's hard not to worry, it's hard not to be stressed, but as a very wise woman once told me, you cannot be grateful and stressed or angry at the same time.  So choose gratitude whenever possible.

As for me, I need a shower, I ordered two more pair of my favorite sweatpants so I can wear them every day, my nails are a crime, my house is a mess, and my dishwasher if being a little bitchy, but its all good.

Take good care of yourselves and give yourselves some love.  I'll see you soon!

*How I did this: I am using Youtube TV, and adding Law and Order to my library.  When any channel airs L and O, or there's an L and O marathon, it saves all the episodes in order.  Genius!

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Old Ass

Today is my birthday.  I'm 47.  I feel about 26.  I look... 47.  Here is a list of the things that make me feel old:
1) When I have to enter my birth year online, and I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to 1970. 
2) I've had the same email address for more than 20 years.  I've watched email be new, exciting technology, and now old technology.  I'm binge watching old Will and Grace with the kid, and they all have land lines and online dating is new. 
3) Computers don't even come with CD drives anymore and I don't know how to make someone a 'mix tape' now. 
4) There are so many fewer gift possibilities now.  No CDs or DVDS or books. I've had to resort to giving my husband cufflinks.  And shirts that use cufflinks.
5) Writing the check for my property taxes doesn't make me feel old exactly, but it makes me feel mature.  And broke.
6) My skin.  And my ass.  No amount of weight loss will get this ass or these boobs back to where they used to be.  So fuck weight loss.
7) Walking my little neighbor to kindergarten once a week and realizing that that school used to be my whole life. And now my whole life is my couch.
8) My kid is looking at colleges.  And driving.  She's driving a car.
9) My once new car is 18 years old and parts are falling off of it.  If it were a person it could vote. 
10) That same car has a sticker from the college I went to on it, and now if people see it they probably think my kid goes there.  No one gives two shits where I went to college anymore.

So there you have it: A list of 10 things that make me feel as old as I am, or older.  But its all good.  Life is good, and uncomplicated, and fun, and there's so much good TV.  Its all worth it.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Monday

You know, its really hard to be light and funny right now.  The news and the catastrophes and the apocalypse are starting to get to me. I just have no head space for what is happening in Spain and Catalonia right now.  I'm full up.  Sorry, Spain. Or Catalonia. Or whichever one is right, I don't even know, and I just can't pay attention to that right now.

So right now I'm sitting on my couch in my bathrobe at 5 pm.  I just need a cigarette and a soap opera and some hamburger helper and I would be a picture of the 70s.  My house has been upside down for the past week because we had some work done in our bathroom, and I did some work in my kitchen and everything has to be put back together.  By me.  Alone.  So I cleaned the kitchen, had some food, and then took a break and read and took a nap.  Then I promised myself that if I scrubbed the bathtub and took a shower, I could watch The Deuce on HBO (more on that in a minute.)  So I scrubbed the shit out of the shower (its so weird how clean stuff gets when you actually, y'know, clean it) took a shower in my freshly scrubbed tub with freshly grouted tile surround, and then I sat on the sofa in my bathrobe and watched my show and haven't moved.  The kitchen and the tub are the tip of the iceberg in this house, but I don't want to get carried away.

I love this show, The Deuce.  It is so dirty and gritty and misogynistic, and so well acted, and so well art directed and shot.  I love everything about it.  If you can't handle pimps and prostitutes and violence against women and the mob and dirty cops, its not your show.  But I love it.  It makes me want to smoke.

I haven't smoked a cigarette in over a decade and even when I did smoke it was only a little.  But lately, and maybe its all the apocalypse, I just want to smoke again.  I haven't, and I would probably barf if I did, but sometimes I fake smoke when I'm by myself, with a pencil or something.  This came up on that show This is Us, fake smoking.  Now that show:  Is there anything more manipulative?  I don't like shows or movies that pull the tears out of you like that's their goal.  That show doesn't make me cry.  I refuse to cry because that's what it wants me to do.  But I'm still watching it, so that's on me. 

I have to go feed my dogs and the fish.  They are all waiting not-so-patiently

Monday, October 2, 2017

Vegas, baby.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

You know what is sad about this incident in Las Vegas in addition to the horrifying loss of life by the hand of a man who was clearly suffering some major defect, is that I'm not even surprised anymore.  My daughter was born pre-Columbine, and is used to news about shootings every few weeks or so.  Its a part of her life.  Last week there was graffiti on a bathroom wall at her high school warning of a school shooting, and the week before the students were evacuated as a result of a bomb threat.  This is her life.  And she doesn't live in Mexico among drug cartels, or South Central LA among gangs, or in a war torn country, this is a safe, affluent county, and this is still a part of her life.

AND NOW TOM PETTY IS DEAD? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

What is the universe trying to tell us here?  I have been so frustrated lately with the amount of hostility I see around me every day; people yelling at each other about parking spaces, people being snarky and entitled when it would cost them nothing to be kind, kids following those adults' examples.  The negativity of the news, and the hurricanes and the shootings and the fleeing refugees, and the earthquakes.  I just can't.  Its hard to let it all in and feel it.  I think we'd go crazy if we did.

So here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to call my representatives and ask them what its gonna take to get some gun control laws passed.  I'm going to attend a rally for gun control if I can find one.  I'm going to be as kind as I can, and as generous as I can, and I'm going to self righteously suggest that others do the same when they are choosing to be ass hats. 

I'm going to blast some Tom Petty and have a day drink and dance in my living room.  And pray. In my atheist way, I'll pray.  What else can we do?  I'm open to suggestions.

Thursday, September 28, 2017

Vegas Baby!

I just came back from Las Vegas.  This was my third time there, second time this year.

The first time I went to Vegas was for a work conference 18 or so years ago and I was not medicated for my crazy anxiety so it was a tough place for me.  And it was 109 degrees which made me want to die.

The second time I went was this past June when Rob made me accompany him to a bowling tournament.  Other wives were supposed to go, but they smartly dropped out.  It was 115 degrees.  I didn't leave the hotel, and mostly watch Law and Order reruns in the hotel room.  I vowed I would never go to Las Vegas again.  I hate Las Vegas.

But then I started thinking how fun it would be to make someone else who hates Vegas go there.  So my cousin and I agreed we would take our moms to Las Vegas for their birthdays and get tickets for Celine Dion.

We also planned lots of other activities, and it was only 84 degrees.  I liked Las Vegas.

The first night we went to see a Cirque du Soleil show.  I think I am one of the only people in North America to have never seen one.  Y'know? I don't think I need to see another one.  It was incredible, all the crazy acrobats, but there was a large man dressed as a baby and he made me very uncomfortable.  And it was so... random.  Like a dream you wake up from and wonder What the hell did I eat last night!?  Like, some acrobats would be doing their thing on center stage but there'd be some random clown dude balancing on a ball in the background, and another baby character dressed in pjs running around in the rafters, and then at the end she comes out riding a large inflatable snail, and that's the grand finale.  Wha?  I think my tastes might be a little more reality-based and not as much acid trip-based.

The next day we drove to Hoover Dam.  Check.

Then it was time for Celine.  Now, to be clear, I am not a big Celine fan, but my mom is, and the lady who does my nails has seen her four times.  Her show is kind of bucket list item, and it was either her or Donny and Marie.  I entered the Colosseum at Caesars Palace and rolled my eyes at the all the Celine merch that was available; Who would walk around in a Celine Dion T shirt unless they were being ironic?  I was too cool, too hip.

Well.

That Celine, man, she can sing. Like, for real.  By the middle of the show I was thinking, Oh I'm buying one of those Celine T shirts.  She was pretty unbelievable.  She did her dramatic hand motions and had her Quebecois accent, and her sparkly outfits were... sparkly, and she had a 28 piece band behind her.  I liked the first half better than the second.  My snarky judgement is that she talks a little too much and finds herself very charming and funny while I do not.  She went on for 5 minutes about crest white strips.  I'm sure its a go-to story and her true fans eat it up.  My aunt didn't know who Celine was going in, and was so relieved when it was over.  She seemed to doze off during the Prince tribute.

My final review: If you like watching amazingly talented musicians ply their craft, go see Celine.  She's a pro, and I am now a fan.  In fact I'm listening to her right now.  I didn't buy a T shirt tho.  But if I had I would wear it proudly.

The rest of the trip was good, the weather was great, the food was excellent, I lost money at the slots as I always do (you don't even want me standing next to you while you gamble.  I'm a jinx.)  Two days is about my Vegas limit.  Maybe three if one of those days is a pool day.

I think one of the keys to me liking Vegas is to go without my husband.  I feel a little freer to order that second drink, and eat where I want to eat, and I don't have to watch bowling.  We'll see, now that I don't hate Vegas as much, maybe we'll go there again.

If it is over 85 degrees, though, I'm out.




Friday, September 15, 2017

Um, Hello? Anyone still here?

Its been two years.

Two years, 4 months and 19 days since I said goodby to you all.  Feels like longer.

I've missed you.  I've missed writing.  I've missed typing.  I've missed the small (very small) amount of fame in my town.  I've missed having a place to complain about my family and my ass and what to make for dinner.

So I've decided to come back.

BORED HOUSEWIFE IS BACK, Y'ALL!

I don't know how I will catch you up on all the happenings of the last two years; they've been mundane, excruciatingly hard, sometimes heartbreaking, but also good - so good - and funny, and warm and full of love and life.  Here's a brief update:

1) I have a moderately successful business doing residential interior design: I finished design school, have clients and love it.  Sometimes I've very busy, and sometimes I'm not.  I haven't quite figured how to make money.  I'm working on it.

2) I'm still married: 21 years now.  Leila has asked me to please never get divorced, and I told her we can't afford it.  But I kinda like the guy.

3) I have a 15 year old daughter with purple hair: Teenage girls are no joke.  Woof. I say a quiet prayer of thanks daily that she doesn't dress like a ho, and she likes school, and isn't on drugs.  More on her later.

4) My loathsome cat, Sunny, died last year, and the same day we got another dog: a puppy named Bryce.  I have two dogs.  I don't know what I was thinking.

5) I have pretty much completely given up on making dinner for my family.  I know what I'm about.

6) I am still a lard ass.  I don't think this will ever change.  I have the appetite of an 8 year-old at a birthday party.

7) I have done some major travel, including India and the Mediterranean, but I wont bore you with travel pics. (unless you really want me to.)

8) My parents are alive and well, but I can report that some of their friends are not.  Getting old is a bitch.

9) We cut the cord, and now I have to buy seasons of Law and Order on iTunes, which I do.  No commercials is my favorite thing about modern life, and I will never go back.  In fact, TV is so good now, I have real problems getting off the couch.

10) I don't know if I have a number 10.  I'm so annoyed and upset by what is going on in the world everyday, and I want to be a positive force.  I want to be kind, and help others be kind, and have some laughs and give some laughs and do what I can.

I hope I still know how to be funny.

I hope I have something to say, (although why should I start now?)

I hope you might still be out there.

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