clickmom

The look

I feel kind of wrong saying this, but the pandemic and subsequent confinement actually turned out to be a real growth experience for Josh. I actually think he is in a better place right now than if he hadn’t had to lock himself up with his Gen X mom and Boomer dad. Well, I think he will be 100% in a better place once the trauma of confinement wears off. He is definitely in a geographically better place and in his first choice school. BTW, Josh completely knew how much I didn’t want him to go where he went freshman year. I can’t fake anything with that kid. Anyways, he called me out of the blue yesterday while walking to class. We chatted for about 20 minutes. I was happy for the rest of the day. See, what I mean? It was good for him.

Yesterday I took the husband to the nurse who is trying to help him keep his fluid levels consistent and where they should optimally be. She had not met him before so she ran through ALL the questions. She seemed to magically hit every super big health related issue that the husband will not address. First it was his inability to sleep properly because he refuses to use a cpap machine long enough to get used to it. Then it was his refusal to give up diet cola. Then she brought up a “heart healthy diet.” The husband knew he had been exposed and he couldn’t look the nurse in the eye. She asked a few more questions and then she said “Do you have a good support system?” I knew she was talking to me because I saw her looking right at me but the husband who was looking at the floor shrugged and said “Yeah, I guess so..” the nurse and I gave each other the inside joke look. I told her I had good friends to lean on. It was funny.

More plague rats

I just had to go into Walgreens to pick up one of the husband‘s prescriptions and I’m telling you right now my head is about to explode. I walk in there’s a young woman at the cash register checking out with no mask. I walked past her and saying a nice clear voice “There’s a mask mandate in this town.” But I don’t want to stand there and argue with a plague rat, you know? She might breathe on me!

Then I turn to go down an aisle and there’s another dumb blonde b—ch with no mask. Not the same piece of s**t I saw last week either. And I decide I’m going to video them but the checkout girl already left so I took a video of the dumb blonde b—ch. I hate everyone and I need to figure out how to start a local movement were stores refuse entry and or service to anyone not wearing a mask. F##k those people. I hope they all die alone and scared in a pool of their own urine in the beds that they sleep in.

Milking the unintentional compliment

So, I went out to eat (outdoors) with a friend (peanut) for the first time since before the pandemic and all I wanted was a margarita. When the waitress came over she mentioned ID. I said “You’re not going to card me are you?” And she said “By law I have to card anyone under 50.” What a fantastic meal. I can’t remember anything after that but I’m pretty sure the food was good too.

Just kidding. I remember everything. The food was great and we got there super early so there was only one other table there and I chose the table where the wind worked in my favor and wasn’t going to blow anyone else’s hot germy mouth vapor in my direction (oh yes I did check out the wind direction before sitting down). The margarita hit me like a ton of bricks because I had skipped breakfast in anticipation of this tasty meal and that was fantastic too. Peanut and I chatted and told stories and it was so nice to have a two way conversation. So nice. Then I took her to the woods so she could see what a great place I have here to walk sweet pea, since she and I spent hours and hours walking devil dog and her puppy under the power lines due to no dog friendly open space in or around stepford back in the day. The dog friendliness of the new town area is it’s best feature according to me.

Then a new town dog park friend called me just as I was going to order take out for dinner and ended up picking up my takeout and coming over to sit for a couple of hours in my backyard eating and drinking with me that same night. I really appreciated the day off from cooking and hanging out with two friends in one day seemed so freaking normal. It made me so happy and sad at the same time. But whenever I get the sadness I just reminded myself that a 20 year old waitress that it was obvious that I had to be carded because I was under 50. Yeah. I’m going to squeeze out another day of smiling to myself over that one.

my facebook reply

Sonja said she is has become and empty nester. Liz asked her how it was. I answered:

Liz I know how it is. It’s weird! And HARD!! You have no idea how many times a day you’ll glance at their room expecting them to be there. In the grocery store you won’t know how much you should buy of anything. Also, not having to take into account of likes and dislikes with meal planning, so much less laundry, your house feels kind empty and quiet, and you’ll want to tell them the silly details of your day at least 3 times every day but you are afraid you’ll look a bit stalkerish if you text them every time you think of them, and the goal was always independence anyway, so even though you desperately want them to be around to share all of the good things you have to remind yourself every other hour that the good thing is that your child, who is a young adult as far as as the rest of the world is concerned but will always be your child to you, is a fearless conqueror who is doing the best job possible at being that young adult and this is cause for celebration, so you just swallow all that melancholy and learn to celebrate the victories that mean your child is right where they are meant to be and that isn’t right by your side, under your feet, or sulking in their room, whatever… and maybe you can a tiny little slice of credit for helping them get there.

Then they come back for that first college vacation and your house gets crowded, messy (or messier in my case), you have to buy more, cook more, clean more, start paying attention to the comings, goings and needs of more people when you’ve quickly gotten used to the decreased number and you think, “When are you going back to school again?” and you marvel at how much easier it quickly became to be an empty nester.

Freud this

OK I hope this dream is the meaningful and fascinating deep delve into my subconscious that I think it is.

Last night I had a dream that I was leaving my room (which was kind of like a dorm like a room) and I didn’t have enough space to take everything in the room and I had to go through the items one by one, some of the items were hidden, and decide whether it was worth taking or not. The crazy part of it is that everything in the dream was a symbolic item from some other repeating dream that I’ve had in the past. So I’m hoping that this means that in my life I’m ready to let go of the emotional things that don’t serve me anymore and only keep the emotional things that I really need to move forward.

It would make sense to me that that is what my dream means because I was actually thinking yesterday about my new therapist and wether or not this time (out of all the many many fucking times I’ve been in therapy) my head is finally going to get to the better place that I would like my head to get to.

It felt so freeing to decide to leave some of the things behind. Mostly the reasons for leaving things behind me as because they actually had no value. Things that I had to decide not to bring included items like a dented garbage can, some toy figurines, some pictures that looked like paintings but were actually just reproductions printed onto canvas, my bedding (though in some cases, like the bedding, I questioned if I was ever coming back to that place and it was uncertain but doubtful) , bookcases, children’s books, a box of old photographs (I took those but also wondered if I was the last person who would care about them), and I know there was more. I just can’t recall all of it now that I’m awake.

The very end of the dream was me needing to leave quickly and I had my dog with me. (Duh. Would I be me if I didn’t have a dog? Maybe not.) I was invited into the vehicle of someone I felt safe with but decided instead to leave in the vehicle of someone who I was unsure about because something about him was mildly threatening in some vague way that I felt but couldn’t put a finger on. The threatening guy (both were men) couldn’t get his vehicle started so we both stood in the back and looked at it. It wasn’t a normal vehicle it had a boat motor/propeller attached to it and there were all kinds of switches and dials. I’m pretty sure we had to choose between gas and oil… and the car needed one but the boat motor needed the other…maybe? That part is hazy now. I thought I knew what he should do, we tried it, but in the end my suggestion failed and he figured out what he needed to do on his own. When he figured out how to do it and I turned out to be wrong I felt really really small. I wanted to curl up into myself and be silent. The silent thing seems meaningful.

And somehow I feel like this part of the dream represents me always finding guys need to be fixed and whatever I try doesn’t help. We all know we have to figure our own stuff out by ourselves right?

This would make so much sense if I told you that I was drinking or getting high or doing something weird before I went to bed yesterday but I went to bed stone cold sober and I didn’t even take my melatonin so this is all 100% my subconscious talking to me. Which is great because if I can leave the stuff I don’t need behind and get where I need my head to go without having to use medication or be part of a mushroom/LSD experiment or something like that I’d be even happier to be there.

No matter what I’m
Going to believe in this healthy interpretation of my dream. Believing it was healthy will make me happy and able to face whatever bullshit life I have to wade through to get to the BETTER goal part. What do you think? (I actually think signing up for a psilocybin research program would help me get there faster but I’m willing to wait it out and do the work as long as I know I’m really doing it)

Karen!

The story of some dumb maskless plague rat b!tch mislabeling me as a “Karen”

I ran to The pharmacy to pick up a prescription and as I’m parking I see this woman walking in with some serious attitude and no mask on. I enter, turn to go down an aisle and she’s standing there. No mask, not even under her chin. So I go back to the register and ask the guy (idiot has his mask underneath his nose) if this store has a mask requirement. He says “actually we do” and I say, in that case you should know there is a completely unmasked woman in the candy aisle. But when I turn around she is standing there on line. So I hold my arm up, point at her, say loud enough for all the responsibly masked people standing on line over there “She’s over here now” and everyone turns around to stare at her. She looks at me and says “OK Karen” to me, again, dripping with entitlement. Karen?? Haha!! As if! And say back (again, super loud so everyone can hear) “OK plague rat!” And then walk away. I hate people.

Tired

I sent this text to a couple of friends at 5:43 tonight.

I’m so tired that when I sat down in front of my computer, I propped up my phone, positioned my water glass and put the trail camera down only to take my eyes off the phone screen to look at my empty hands and think to myself “Shit. Where did I leave my phone?”

I sent this text to the same friends at 7:36.

I’m so tired part 2.

My new ergonomic mouse came and I sat down in front of my computer with my fingers crossed that it would work with my ancient software- so I’m going into this experiment a bit nervous.

I put 2AA batteries in, I plug in the little thingy in the back of the computer and I hold the two buttons down for 3 seconds that is supposed to start things off. Nothing.

I unplug and replay everything. Still nothing. Then I realize there is no little light anywhere on the mouse, and I’m thinking maybe the mouse is defective. The batteries are new and I noticed that they expire in 2030.

So I call the hotline for the company that makes the mouse. A guy picks up right away (what a wonderful surprise!!) and I tell him that the mouse isn’t pairing with the thingy and that I suspect the mouse isn’t working because there should be a red light on a mouse. He asks me if I have moved the switch to on and I tell him that I know he has to ask me certain questions but I’m not stupid. I said it in a nice way though, not bitchy.

Then I looked into the battery case and realized I had inserted one of the batteries the wrong way. And it worked just fine.

Then I had to laugh about telling him a wasn’t stupid. And apologize for wasting his time. He laughed with me and told me not to worry that he gets all sorts of questions and that I was nice.

2 hours until bed.