Let’s see if I can squeeze a little more “life” into my life. I was talking to my friend yesterday about how I THINK I want more relaxing, easy time, but then I constantly pack myself with new things, classes, activities, etc. While I *am* always getting interested in new/different things, I think some part of packing my schedule so full all the time is…if I’m super busy and “content-entertained,” I don’t notice that…maybe my life is not all that I’d hoped for and that….ugh, I’m a “me” and not a “we.”

Yucch. Sad but true.

I can look back at the past 30-ish years and think, “good thing I was doing the gardening newsletter then cuz it distracted me from….” and “so glad I have ebay to obsess over so I don’t notice that ___ is not around so much,” and then it was the blog…and now it’s All These New Things.

So while, yes, I GENUINELY am interested in these things I do, and it’s not like I LOOK for things “to fill my time,” I think part of the obsessiveness with which I become attached to these things is in part, THAT.

Said Dr. Sigmund Rainwater.

Sometimes a jump rope is just a jump rope.

MONDAY

This day was a little annoying, ha ha. Normally when the school is closed and we’re there in the main office, things are pretty quiet and we can get stuff done that is hard to do when there are people in and out all day. But that’s not how it went today and we were busy straight through and didn’t get to any of our “rainy day” projects.

Then I had the follow-up call with the oncologist from the scan last week and while the cancer situation is good (yay), the kidney situation is not (boo). Well, COULD be not. He started out like it was not a big deal and I should have it checked out “soon.” An hour later it was “obstructed kidney/loss of kidney functions/maybe reversible maybe not” but you must see someone IMMEDIATELY. Ugh. So he had a urologist at Slone Kettering in the city (Double Ugh) that could see me tomorrow (Super Ugh)…his office would call me in the evening to make the appointment.

Two hours later, no call and no appointment. So I’m like AM I going into the city tomorrow? And WHY exactly? He HAS my scan already (my onco sent it to him), can’t we just do a phone consultation? The city during the week is a pain in the butt 🙁

Anyway, time for class.

TUESDAY

Just call me The Insect Whisperer.

Ugh.

All of a sudden my apartment…no, my BED…is a HAVEN for beetles and other flying THINGS. I get into bed at night and want the bedside light out while I watch whatever I’m watching on my phone for the next…hour, 4 hours, whatever…and every flying thing in the land comes swooping over to me.

They crash into the phone, they crash into my hand (AACCKK), they crawl on my hair… they get under the covers with me…it’s HORRIBLE. This is horrible. I end up turning the bedside lamp back on, which diverts SOME of them but…the big hard-shelled guys seem to prefer the bed (don’t we all??).

I don’t know what to do. I’m hoping it will sort itself out when the air conditioner goes in and the windows stay closed (there are holes and gaps in the screens). But til then it’s HORRIBLE. I almost got up last night and went to sleep on the sofa, thinking they wouldn’t ALL follow me.

Ha, remember in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when the Dad’s solution to EVERYTHING was Windex? My Life Solution for most everything is “hoping it will sort itself out.” And honestly, most things do.

So, I came home after work to discover that my sweet little bedroom-window/back-of-patio forest had been chopped down! It WAS all little baby trees that are pretty most of the year, and some little undergrowthy things. Now it’s just a bare dirt hill with cut-off tree stumps.

WHY ARE PEOPLE ALWAYS CUTTING DOWN MY TREES??

Now my bedroom window feels so exposed…and the patio doesn’t have that nice green backdrop. The birds and squirrels would hop around right outside my bedroom window cuz they were hidden by foresty things. Not now!

WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY

Spent the usual two hours on homework. Monday is the last class already! The next in the series (Korean Beginner 2, ha) doesn’t start til September 13 (aka Just When I Have Forgotten EVERYTHING), so I’m DEBATING taking another beginner course at a different place that goes from now til then…so I can repeat what I just did (cuz most of it ain’t sticking yet) AND keep from backsliding over the two months.

OR. I can cut myself some slack and enjoy a little more “free” (kekekekekekeke) time this summer. Maybe read a book. Or sit at the beach. That wouldn’t suck.

But I’ll probably do the extra course. Sigh.

OH, so, the whole doctor thing from yesterday, the urologist was supposed to call me last night to schedule an appt for today. No call. This morning at 11am I got a call from my oncologist’s office, “can you be at a 1pm appointment in the city…TODAY?” At 11am they ask me this?!? NO. NO I CANNOT. So the next appointment is next Tuesday. I’ll find a fun city thing to do afterwards and just pretend I’m enjoying a 4-day weekend. Hopefully, it won’t be a million degrees like this week.

WEDNESDAY

I had a lovely, cool night’s sleep with the newly-installed ac…relatively bug-less (not entirely, but SO much better).

Class was hard…as always. Ha. I’m just not that FAST. Like, he’ll say “okayheresanewthingGO” and half the class just seems to get it immediately…and me and 2-3 others just stammer along, sounding out each word character by character, forgetting the rules of sentence structure, and just generally looking like boobs. Which is like my LEAST favorite thing…but I’m still going. There’s like 10 pages of homework again which will take me FOR. EVER.

On a brighter note, I’ve decided to NOT do the mid-summer class and to just pick up again in mid-September. One: cutting myself some slack (one of my favorite things); although Two: finally renting a digital piano in July and taking lessons for the month to see if it’s something I will ACTUALLY spend time with. If not, it goes back and I’ll try again at a less busy time of my life…but if yes, then I’ll find a way to buy one and continue with lessons, which is the OPPOSITE of cutting myself some slack, but hey. I yam what I yam.

THURSDAY

HA HA HA HA HA Inspired by Kim Taehyung Ha Ha, aren’t we all??

Yay Thursday! AND IT WAS GLORIOUS. It was the first “not as stressful as the beginning of the week” night of the week. Ha. Meaning, no class, and no class again til Monday, so I have a little time. So I came home from work, did my TikTok video and OOTD picture, edited and uploaded…then put on the nightgown dress, turned the ac on, and lay on the sofa and read. Til I dozed off. Then had a snack while I watched a couple episodes of a BTS documentary. Got in bed and watched a couple short films on YouTube and went to sleep at a decent hour.

I love having a night like that once in a while.

I guess that was me squeezing a little more life into my life 🙂

FRIDAY

I haven’t been this excited about a Friday…since last Friday 🙂

I’m alone in the office, just a few admin staff in the back of the building. I’ve already been given the okay to leave an hour early YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY.

And it’s a 4-day weekend! Ish. It’s really a 3-day weekend but I have the city urologist appointment for Tuesday at noon so had to take a sick day for that. But will pretend it’s part of the weekend and do something fun after the appointment. And then next week is only a 3-day week, woohoo!

SATURDAY

This was my day:

BEFORE

AFTER

OTHER AFTER

Nothing ever truly leaves. It just moves from one place to another. That’s science.

SUNDAY

Went to a friend’s 4th of July party, she has the perfect party house on the water and is a great cook and gracious host, so it’s always a nice time.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

This song, on obsessive repeat. It’s a song from the soundtrack of a k-drama called Reply 1988 which is supposed to be very good, though I haven’t watched it yet (So Many K-Dramas So Little Time). Anyway, I came across this sweet clip (from last summer’s In The Soop documentary) of Jin and Yoongi (BTS) chatting and singing in the car. ANYWAY. They’re so cute together, they have this easy, gentle banter between them (I’ll share a clip another time of another example of this). ANYWAY (having a hard time getting to the punch here, I just felt it needed some context).

The song is another one of those “Mom & Dad dancing in the wood-paneled den in 1971 while you and your little brother roll your eyes and pretend to vomit but secretly like it” songs. It has kind of Eidelweiss (Sound of Music reference: Another song I’m obsessed with and that still makes tears run down my face after 55 years) vibes to me.

ANYWAY (ha), here is the original clip…

And then here I found the song itself and THIS is what’s on repeat at home, in the car, at work, wherever I can get away with playing it 17 times in a row without someone throwing something at me. It’s called Don’t Worry, Dear and I just find it so comforting and soothing.

The End.

Thanks for playing.