MONDAY

Memorial Day. It was a quiet day. But these sort of “backyard party” holidays are always quiet for me…and I like it that way.

I piddled, read, shot two outfits, spent too much time hunting down things I never found, spent too much time trying to figure out what’s wrong with this %&R%%$! keyboard, watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, season 10, and went to bed.

I had a sandwich. I like making my own “fancy” mayonnaise. Today, with cajun turkey, I mixed mayo, orange marmalade (typically I would use raspberry for turkey but the raspberry marmalade has disappeared), and sriracha. So it’s a little creamy, a little sweet, and a little spicy.

TUESDAY

Work. Then sweet, sweet release and a trip to the beach with friends. It was a little foggy but nice for sitting til we were too damp and cool. We saw an albino rainbow. The parking lot had orange cones in every other parking spot to not let it fill up more than 50% capacity. It was a foggy, Tuesday afternoon. It was nowhere near even half capacity.

I came home and made spaghetti and meat sauce.

WEDNESDAY

Work from home, then work at work in the afternoon. Then to Sloan Kettering for my annual scan. I feel so removed when I go there now. Like “this has nothing to do with me why am I even here.” This is just Year 3, so I have two years to go before they give the All Clear.

The contrast dye they inject for the scan (that makes you feel like you’re peeing all over yourself while you’re sliding in and out of the machine) makes things taste bad for a couple days. So I came home after, hungry for my spaghetti from last night…and it tasted like bad metal (as opposed to good metal). Bleh.

THURSDAY

A grey day. Drippy. Worked. Never left the building.

Oncologist called about yesterday’s scan. Unnerved me a bit when I saw his name on caller id because I don’t usually get a phone call next day and I didn’t have an appt to meet with him for a month. Scan is good as far as cancer, all clean, bravo and yay. BUT. The large kidney stone I have had for YEARS (remember when I went to ER in November from bad KS pain?) is now partially blocking my left kidney and needs to be addressed. So he is going to send a copy of the scan to the urologist…who will charge me a $50 co-pay to say (again), that THEY can’t help me at their kidney center because my weight is too high for them to do a lithotripsy (laser kidney stone pulverizing procedure requiring twilight anesthesia) because someone of my weight requires so much anesthesia and if there are complications, we’re not in a hospital where there’d be someone to help in an emergency. I can’t go directly to a hospital because hospitals (here, anyway) don’t do them, I need a urologist. So back in November I was referred to a “kidney specialist” who MAY be able to help me…but the 12-year-old I spoke to on the phone at the specialist’s office said the earliest available appointment was in January, but he would check to see if they could move anything around for me and call me back the next day. The End.

I did a 2-hour “Making a Movie on a Cell Phone” zoom class in the evening which I thought was going to be about making a movie on a cell phone. Ehh. It was really about movie pre-production concerns, equipment, planning, etc., etc., but we never actually got to making a movie on a cell phone. And after the “making” there’s the whole issue of editing. So. While it was all very interesting, it really needs a Part 2 that would actually cover making a movie on a cell phone.

FRIDAY

Warm and humid. 8am Zoom call. Finally washed the dishes. OH I’m writing this from my new laptop! I finally bit the bullet since it looks like Work from Home will be continuing for awhile…and now that it’s nice out I figured I could work from the patio sometimes and once coffee shops are open again I can do blog writing outside the house as well. Plus, I’ve wanted a drawing tablet for AGES. So this has that. I’m still getting things set up on it, you know how that goes.

Once the workday was done I LEFT THE BUILDING. I didn’t really have any specific destination, so I just headed west a bit til I found a nice spot to sit and read my book. I got a coffee. I read in my chair in the shade overlooking the water. Not a bad afternoon.

SATURDAY

I sort of did my Sunday routine today of listening to podcasts and looking at news and letting my mind wander. I’m generally not a political person. I’m not an activist or particularly well-versed in current events. But it’s hard not to see and feel what is happening in our country right now. And I feel incredibly sad and…useless, I guess. Guilty that I’m not DOING something, saying something. I’m reading other people’s words online “here’s ways to support,” “here’s what not to do,” “here’s how you’re not  helping,” and it’s…overwhelming. And then I feel guilty about feeling overwhelmed. Here in my safe home in my safe community with my safe-colored skin and my safe income and my health and my privilege. I’m aware that I’m not part of the solution…I’m just trying to learn how not to be part of the problem. And feeling overwhelmed and sad and guilty.

I’m going to take a media break for the rest of the day (again, not helping). I’m no Suzy Sunshine. I’m the first one to say the world is not all good. But today I need to get out there and see some good.

SUNDAY

Got out. Met friends.

Instagram:

Real Life:

WHAT I’M READING

Commonwealth by [Ann Patchett]

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. I was excited to read this book because it came well-recommended and cuz the basic premise sounded sort of like the start of a book I read recently that I really liked – Ask Again, Yes. But. Maybe a younger, sharper mind would have had a better time with it. I had a very hard time keeping all the characters straight. There were so many! Combined families, divorced families, second marriages, kids, kids of kids. I couldn’t really figure out who the story was ABOUT! I’d finish a (very long, they were very long chapters) chapter and think, alright, I think I have it…and then the next chapter would have jumped 10, 15, 20 years ahead and everyone was in totally different situations again and I had to start all over figuring out who was who. By the Very End, I thought, OKAY – I think I know who everyone goes with…and then it was over. And maybe that was part of the story. One of the main characters is at a Christmas Eve party (on December 22) and was bemoaning the fact that she couldn’t keep her new step-father’s many sons and wives and kids straight…and I was like, RIGHT??? So. I guess it was a good STORY, but I didn’t really enjoy READING it. 3.5/5

WHAT I’M WATCHING

Finished Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. There’s like eight years or something between seasons, so I’m not holding my breath for the next one, but it sure makes me laugh.

AND THE NEXT WEEK…

MONDAY

WHAT IS GOING ON?? I am consumed by the news, the horrible stories, I am so SAD. That sounds so trivial – “sad.” But it is huge and I am not alone in it.

TUESDAY

#BlackOutTuesday. The you-know-what is hitting the FAN. I feel like the whole world is turning on itself and we are not going to make it through to the other side!

Never got dressed, never set foot outside. Can’t get away from the news.

WEDNESDAY

Between work and responding to blog comments, I was literally at this computer from 7:30am til 11:30pm. I didn’t get dressed, I didn’t open the front door to look outside.

THURSDAY

Finally left the building. That was a good thing. Got Chinese food and watched one of those movies that when it’s over you’re like, “what did I just watch”? Was there a point? Was the father abusive? Maybe maybe not. Did the mother molest him? Maybe maybe not. Did the wife die of radiation poisoning from 3-mile Island? Maybe maybe not. Did the prostitute in hair rollers ever get to eat her eggs? What was that weird party? Did the horse die of radiation cancer? Did the friend? Maybe maybe not. I think the only dialogue for the entire 90 minutes was the main character reading his poems out loud. What did I just watch?  

FRIDAY

I had the day off today. I took a 4-day weekend. I didn’t do anything special. It was a little drippy all day so I didn’t head out anywhere really. Zoomed with blogger friends. Did a little work (even though I wasn’t working). Got a bacon and tomato sandwich at the deli! THAT was a big deal.

Read more stuff. Trying to find something local – a discussion group, “racism sensitivity training” (?). Still reading What To Do What Not To Do everywhere I go on the internet.

After much deliberation will post normal content this week.

SATURDAY aka the one where i tried to go to a protest

Yes, this silly old white woman thought she was going to Make a Difference by going to a protest. It was just a small local one, but I thought that would be good for a first-timer like myself. I made my Black Lives Matter sign, put on sunscreen, got a bottle of water, and off I went.

Terrified.

Not from an “oh I’m afraid of getting hurt/arrested” perspective, more just my usual anxiety about going to something new by myself. Are there rules? Were we going to be marching or just holding signs up on the side of the road? Did people stay the full three hours or did you rotate in as needed? Was there like a registrar to sign in with and get a name tag? I only knew the time (3-6) and location. So I headed that way thinking I would just go, get the lay of the land, and see how I felt once I got there. A few minutes away the skies opened up and there was a torrential downpour.

IS THAT A SIGN?!

When I got to The Spot, there were probably…200 hundred people standing along the street with signs, chanting. The light turned red and I was stopped right in front of the chat leader/organizer? and I beeped to the rhythm of the BLACK! LIVES! MATTER! (beep beep beepbeep!) chant and pumped my fist in the air outside my window in the rain. I got some applause and the organizer lady fist-in-the-air-ed back at me. It was a pretty exhilarating moment.

Then the light turned green and off I went. I drove around a couple blocks trying to find a spot to park where I could just watch and maybe take some pictures – the sun had burst through and it was a beautiful moment. But…there was really nowhere to park. So I went to McDonalds for a quarter pounder with cheese, thinking I’d go back for the last hour. Surely it would have dwindled down by then and I’d be able to get a good parking spot and join in for the grand finale. I got back there at 5:06…and there was not a single soul left! I don’t know if I had the time wrong or there was another downpour so people left or if the cops got tired of watching them and were like okay, time’s up, go home.

So. I tried in a very half-a**ed way. I had good intentions, but they’re pretty worthless. BUT – now I have a sign – and a better understanding of how it works. And NEXT time I’ll actually DO IT. With them. Not just from my car.

SUNDAY

Made a list of areas I want to get cleaned up in the apartment, by priority based on how much they annoy me. Space #1, the mess of my desk area.

Fun Box.

Ooh ahh, clear floor space.

I tried painting. I couldn’t find my good brushes. There’s a reason “good brushes” are good brushes.

What I’m Reading

Too much. I need to get a direction, a plan. Otherwise, I’m going an inch deep in a hundred different directions, but not getting very far in any one direction.

What I’m Watching

12 Years a Slave. Heart-wrenching true story of free black man in the 1840’s living in Saratoga, NY with his wife and children, an upstanding member of the community. He’s kidnapped, taken to New Orleans, and sold as a slave. It’s not really clear if it was a case of mistaken identity or what, but…he is enslaved for 12 years.

I’m looking forward to starting a fresh week tomorrow.