MONDAY

nervous weather day
erranding through the puddles
grateful to be home

Today was a little hectic and I was a little frazzled between the weather and having to be “out in the world,” and a work project I was feeling unsure about. I had myself convinced I was having shortness of breath, but I really think it was just some nervous jitters. Once I got back home I felt fine.

TUESDAY

I worked all day and worked all night. The End.

WEDNESDAY

Jodie and I “co-styled” pleated skirts on IGTV (Instagram TV). First time I’ve done IGTV so that was exciting…and why I was up til midnight last night getting everything figured out and done.

And now I want a rainbow skirt.

THURSDAY

Today was probably my “clearest” day of the week. Some work days have felt so scattered, it’s hard to prioritize when everything seems like the most important thing.  But today was a good day, I was able to prioritize my To Do list and just work my way south from the top and got a lot accomplished.

It was probably a good day to hear that NY has extended the “stay at home” order through May 15. That’s another month. And yes, I’m perfectly comfortable being home alone, but….you know how drug addicts love their drugs, but they’re not good for them? That’s probably how me being home alone is for extended periods of time. I LOVE it…but it’s maybe not that good for me.

The things I’m really missing are: food prepared by someone else (take-out, fast food, eating out) and being able to take pictures of different things. It’s killing me that I can’t be in the city recording this time. Never again (well, til the next pandemic, sigh) will the streets of NYC be EMPTY. I’m sad to be missing gardens and all the signs of spring. I dreamt that I was on a local beach and there were tons of dolphins cavorting just beyond the waves, and I just KNOW they’re Really There and I’m missing them!

FRIDAY

I really need to get this space under control! No Instagram Perfection here!

Twenty days of working from home. I’m shocked it’s been that long. If someone asked me how long I’d been working from home and I didn’t really have time to think…I’d say two weeks. Ha.

SATURDAY

Just a quiet morning here…it’s drizzly and grey outside so I’m not terribly motivated to be productive. I could easily spend 99.5% of my time indoors, alone. If I could just go out now for deli breakfast sandwiches or a slice of pizza or McDonalds ice tea or a fresh bagel, I’d be perfectly happy.

I enjoy watching Governor Cuomo’s morning address on the internet. I usually miss most of it during the week while I’m working but I always watch it on Saturday. He might be my new imaginary boyfriend.

Yesterday I thought that today I would try and get this apartment straightened up a bit so it doesn’t look like a person in quarantine lives here (#funnynotfunny), but now I’m really not feeling it. I will at least do the kitchen as it is over-run with dirty dishes again. But first I think I’ll go read on the sofa for awhile.

And then…I fell off the face of the earth.

SUNDAY

Gah. I turned my phone OFF yesterday. OFF. Not just the ringer. The phone OFF. If you know me IRL you know…I have never done that before. NEVER. On the rare occasion that my phone is being wonky and I think I should reboot it to straighten it out, I struggle with turning it off for the 10 SECONDS it takes to reboot and turn back on. If my phone battery goes anywhere close to dying (and to me, less than 50% is close), I get all…twisty and anxious.

But a) I needed a little alone time (I know, I know, I am the only one on the planet who wants LESS interaction right now), and b) everyone else on the planet wanted to connect. My phone would Not. Stop. Buzzing. First I turned the ringer off, but VIBRATEVIBRATEVIBRATE was making me nuts. So I turned TEXTING off – I didn’t even realize you can DO that. And honestly, it doesn’t work WELL, because some things were still coming through VIBRATEVIBRATEVIBRATE so finally I just turned the whole damn thing off so I could read in peace. And then I forgot I’d turned it off and missed two “zooms” I had wanted to do…as I was reading (alright, and napping) I’d occasionally think, hmm, could it be time for the call yet, no, they’d text or call me if I didn’t show up…forgetting that I’d turned the phone off. Ha. And much later, when I realized (oops), it didn’t occur to me that oh, right, pandemic, people dying right and left, maybe I should tell them all I’m okay, I just slept/read through it…so I just continued my (glorious) radio silence til this morning when I looked at my phone and saw 12million messages, and I tried responding and couldn’t…because texting was still “off,” (not sure what “off” means to Apple, but it’s definitely not what “off” means to me) and ugh. I sent out the I’M ALIVE message, tried to reschedule with my daughter, who I then proceeded to have a text fight with and. Ugh. Stupid day.

Maybe the coming week will be better. If not, there are always wine smoothies.

What I’m reading

The Silent Wife: A Novel by [A. S. A. Harrison]

The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison. This is the book I complained about being too sexist. I realized later that it was written in 2013. Not that that makes it okay, but times are changing so quickly, and at that time…even though only seven years ago…maybe it wasn’t as…I don’t know. I decided to give it a couple more chapters…and maybe I became inured to it, or maybe it was just in the beginning when the reader was first learning about the characters that it seemed so in your face, but it seemed to ease up. So I continued to read. And while not my usual kind of book (psychological thriller – and I found it to be neither particularly psychological nor thrilling), it was a “page-turner,” and what had me on cell phone lockdown all of Saturday afternoon. There were a couple annoying loose ends at the end, but…it definitely grabbed my attention and held me. I’m going to give it a 3.6/5 for readability and grip.

Also, there were several paragraphs in the book, I think three, that seemed far more insightful than the rest of the book. The main character was a therapist, who she kept to mainly “easy” (non-dangerous, non-self-injurious, etc.) patients, but she didn’t really seem like a therapist (as far as dealing with her own past and her own relationships), but she (she? the author?) had a couple very wise things to say. I wish I’d marked them all, but it only struck me towards the very end that there had been a couple of these moments…but I’ll share this last one with you: “She never saw the point in fighting with a man who was not going to reform. Acceptance is supposed to be a good thing – Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Also compromise, as every couples therapist will tell you. But the cost was high-the damping of expectation, the dwindling of spirit, the resignation that comes to replace enthusiasm, the cynicism that supplants hope. The moldering that goes unnoticed and unchecked.”

I could go on and on about that, but that could be a whole separate post. Or series. “Bettye’s Views on the World.” I will save you all from that. 

Here’s some things

-> Because some people have wayyy too much time on their hands right now, here’s how to color coordinate your phone’s home screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-> It may not come to this…but as my mother always said “it’s better to have an umbrella and not need it, than to need it and not have it.” So here is where you go to register for a mail-in ballot in your state come election time. This is not political. But everyone should be voting. Don’t wait. Do it.

-> This is kinda cool. You know those sound apps, like rain or waves or whatever? This goes one step better as you combine your sounds of choice. Rain + thunder + wind…or waves + wind…or birds + crickets, etc.

Okay, cats and kittens, y’all have a good week now!