I hate the heat. (Are you trying to kill me, Tex?)
I hate the traffic and the freeways and how everything is at least 30 minutes away.
I hate the bugs. These black grasshoppers are ugly and menacing and if another one crawls out of my sink I might just perish on the spot.
I hate how ugly it is. I’m sure there are beautiful parts of the state, but so far? Fort Worth? Not. Pretty.
I hate that it’s not Montana. I am so homesick I could cry.
Don’t expect this to last long. Regular posting, that is. Cuz it won’t. Trust me. We’ve been here and done this and IT DOESN’T LAST. So don’t expect me to stick around very long. But since I’m here, updates.
1. Back in I-don’t-know-what-month, I imported every blog post from every blog I’d ever created. And then I proceeded to comb through every post to ensure there were no broken links or missing images. And it proved to not only be a daunting and time consuming task, but one that would make me want to punch myself in the face OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Because 25-year-old me was painfully immature, selfish, and actually kind of bratty. And I probably wouldn’t be friends with her.
2. During this process, I finally hit “publish” on a few draft posts. I’m not entirely sure why I never published them before, but I have a feeling it’s because I have completely forgotten (or maybe never knew) how to end a post. Seriously. I get to the end and have said everything I want to say… and I just can’t wrap it up. So I hit save and walk away. But I read these posts for the first time in, like, years and decided they sounded pretty good as is. So, you can read this post about how scary it was to be an Uber driver. This one about my divorce (which was painful to read with all it’s hurt feelings and angst- especially now that I’m over it and happy). Or this one about how I’m a huge asshole and in which I apologize to both an author and an MLB pitcher.
There’s also this one, but it’s not a “post” so much as two sentences about why I hate young people. I came this close to deleting it (cuz it’s dumb), but I still hate young people, so.
3. During The Great Blog Compilation of 2017, I came across a post in which I declared my weight of 219 pounds. 219!! (Not a typo!) Um, did you know that’s OBESE? Happy to report that on any given Thursday (weigh-in day! holla!), I’m within a pound of 160. Haven’t decided on a goal weight yet. The thing is, I don’t feel like I’m trying. And if I have to pick a goal, then I have to actually start trying, right? I’d rather just keep eating and figure it out when I stop losing. Seriously, this has been the best most not-deprived way I’ve ever lost weight. I mean, sure, I had to basically stop eating everything I loved but once I got used to it and stopped crying, EASY PEASY.
4. Some things don’t change. I still don’t know how to end a post. In fact, I started writing this one (yes, this one, the one you’re reading) back in April and every time I come back to finish it, I scratch my head in confusion. What were my plans for numbers 4 and 5? After reading a lifetime’s worth of old blog posts, especially the ones where I spent TWO YEARS dragging my sad corpse of a marriage through divorce, there was so much I wanted to say, so much that has changed, so much that I needed to tell the world! Alas, I can never remember so I close the draft with every intention of coming back to it later. Here we are, a month later, WRITING ABOUT NOTHING. Still can’t remember.
5. I’m sure I could go back and read through some of those old posts to try and trigger my memory, but honestly? You couldn’t pay me enough. They’re either sad and pitiful or young and immature (see comments above about hating young people). And they’re not at all a good time. Right now, there are 15 old posts sitting in my draft folder waiting to be re-published once I find their missing images (where do images go, anyway?) and every time I start to work on them, I feel my 35-year-old spirit slowly dying inside.
(Dying spirits. How’s that for ending a post?)
1. Holy shit, it’s August. August.
2. Holy shit, I’m going to be 31 in 29 days. (Where’s the pause button on this thing?)
3. Holy shit, I’ve been blogging for five years. (And one day, but who’s counting?) That’s a whole hand!
4. I did the math and 467 posts over five years is 1.796153846153846. That’s an average of two posts per week! Which, ya know, ain’t half bad. (Let’s all just pretend for celebration’s sake that it ain’t half bad, okay?) I’m practically a regular blogger!
5. I hate it when I get to five and can’t think of anything else.
6. “Holy shit” has lost all meaning.
The end.
1. I’m feeling sorry for myself tonight. Couple weeks ago I went and did something, well… pretty fucking stupid. It was what prompted my “no more mistakes” resolution. Miraculously, I emerged practically unscathed! I was feeling all mature and grown up having come out with nary a scratch to show for my stumble and decided, what the hell! Let’s take a risk and do it all over again! Let’s make life REALLY INTERESTING! Turns out, you only get away with making some mistakes once. The second time? You get to pay for them. Life’s funny that way.
2. Speaking of which… I was officially divorced as of December 30th. Oddly enough, there are no tangible differences that come with finally being divorced. However, you know that sensation you get when a common word suddenly loses all meaning? Yeah. That. Divorced. How strange. Ironically (or not), my new status has nothing at all to do with this evening’s pity party. No, despite past fears and indecisiveness, I feel more strongly than ever that I made the right decision.
3. FYI, this divorce took nearly TWO YEARS. My attorney said if I had wanted things expedited, I should have thought about paying her. My mom can be a real smartass sometimes.
4. I read some books last year. 157 to be exact. BECAUSE I HAVE NO LIFE. I thought to display said books like I’ve done in years past, then I realized that doing so would probably require me to add some sort of “content warning” because just about EVERY SINGLE BOOK I READ was intended for a mature audience. Anyway, my point is this: reading 157 books was incredibly detrimental to my finances (because I purchased 98% of them) and I must be stopped. I need a good, swift kick in the ass. (For more reasons than one, apparently.)
5. Have you ever spent the better part of an hour writing something just to accidentally delete it? It’s a horrible feeling. I should know because it happened to me just thirty minutes ago. And since I spent the last thirty- no, twenty-five minutes (I spent five minutes denying it had really happened) trying to remember all of the nonsense I had previously spewed (minus one first paragraph which I still had saved to my virtual clipboard) I now don’t have the energy or interest in trying to remember what my #5 would have been. Let’s all just pretend it was something totally clever and insightful and call it a night.
1. My left hand is swollen and painful. I have many theories, but no concrete explanations. With the way my luck is going lately, I thought it best to post something before the damn thing falls off.
2. If you’ve seen my (horribly infrequent) tweets, you heard the heartbreaking news. On Sunday, after moving out of my mother’s house, I went to grab a few items from storage. Namely my books and space heaters (’cause I swear I froze my nipples off that first night in the new place.) I got there only to discover that 98% of my stuff had been stolen. Sad fucking day. And it’s like the most horrible gift that keeps on giving, ’cause each day since then I remember another item that I’ll never see again. (All my books. Just poof! Gone. Fucking assholes.)
3. In happier news: I moved into my new room this past weekend. I say “room” ’cause that’s exactly what it is. A room. With a bathroom and a walk-in closet. No kitchen. (Yeah. I know. But since all of my kitchen appliances were also stolen…) However, my room is apart from the main house. I have my own entrance. And when I bounce up the steps, past my very own mailbox and use my very own key to open my very own door and walk into my very own room to the sound of ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, it’s like the very best room on the whole freaking planet that ever existed, amen.
4. What’s more? The house and property belong to wonderful people. People I know. People who hug me when they see me and tell me how happy they are to have me living there. Technically, they’re Jon’s people. I’d never have met them had we not been married. (Jon is best friends with Ben. Ben is married to Kristina. Kristina is Charley’s sister. Charley owns the house. There’ll be a quiz on this later.)
5. Despite the fact that I have a lot less to unpack than I originally anticipated, this whole moving and settling in thing has taken up, like, all of my time. Well, that and work. Which is why this place looks like shit. Forgive my appearance. Forgive my absence. Things’ll be back to normal soon. (Of course, normal for me means clusterfuck.) Let’s all just go out for a cocktail, okay?
1. Thanksgiving is on Thursday. Thanksgiving. On Thursday. When the fuck did that happen?
2. I pierced my eyebrow. And while I was at it, I crossed out the two, wrote in a one and decided to pretend I’m 19 again.
3. I’ve been going out, like, way too often. This is both fun and problematic.
4. I’m a big, fat NaNo failure. (Emphasis on “fat” and “failure.”) (I blame #3 above.) (Yes, for both.)
5. Come December 1st I. Am. Moving. Out. Way, way more to come on this later.
1. I got the coolest opportunity to help design a real, live author’s personal blog. I’m going to tell you all about it just as soon as I sit and finish that post. But, yeah. It made my fucking year.
2. I’m doing NaNoWriMo. I thought I was agreeing to NaBloPoMo and I thought, what the hell. I tried once and was a miserable failure, but, sure, I can do this. Then I realized that, stupid me, I agreed to NaNoWriMo. Which means I’ve committed to writing AN ENTIRE NOVEL IN ONE MONTH. So, see you not at all during the month of November.
3. IT’S ALMOST NOVEMBER. Are you freaking kidding me?!
4. My brother graduated from boot camp a few days ago. Now he’s a sailor. For the fucking Navy. More on this later, but, dude, I’m like a proud papa. Or, you know, the female equivalent. (“Proud mama” doesn’t sound as good.)
5. I’ve pretty much taken the blog here public. By public, I mean I’ve linked to it on a couple of my public profiles. I’m pretty sure this is a bad idea- I mean, the last time I went public, I had to move and that wasn’t fun for anyone- but I’m tired of hiding. (I promise, no more moves. Ever.) With that being said, I’m also going to start importing my old posts. The trip down memory lane will be either fun or depressing as hell. We’ll see.
6. New phone. Let the reading resume.
7. Obviously I can’t count.
So, here we are. August. Just one short month until my birthday. The big two-nine. And before you pssht me, that is too a big birthday. And I’m determined to go out and celebrate it WITHOUT MY HUSBAND. Who, yes, is still my husband. But only legally.
Let’s recap the last two weeks, shall we?
1. It didn’t take me long after my last post to embrace the solitude of an empty apartment. I pretty much spent the last week of my dog-sitting duties reading, eating, and sleeping in the nude. (I kid! People, please. That’d just be weird.) Despite initial loneliness, living alone is something I could totally get behind.
2. However, then I succumbed to the iPad and, well, that purchase isn’t exactly promoting the saving of monies required for one to move out on their own. Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either.
3. So, now I’m playing a lot of Scrabble. I have, like, 15 games going at any given time. It’s even taken place of Cafe World! I play on Facebook in case you, you know, wanna challenge me. (Go ahead, I dare you.) (But please go easy on me.)
4. I’m still reading. (Gasp! I bet you didn’t see that one coming.) More than ever. It’s gotten bad, peeps. Like, I can’t sleep without having a book to read. A couple nights ago, I started a new book as I got in bed. Four hours later, I finished it. And despite the fact that if I had just closed my eyes and curled up into my normal fetal position I’d have knocked out, I found it physically impossible to do so. Noooo. I had to stay up and look for, download, and start a brand new book. (Of course I was half asleep by this point and remembered nothing of what I’d read the next day.)
And, what’s worse! I’ve started thinking I don’t ever want to get married again if it means I can’t spend as much time reading! Can you say THERAPY?
5. Most recently, I’ve been going to the gym. But I don’t want to tell you about it in case I jinx myself. (Please do not confuse going to the gym for losing weight. One has been much easier than the other.)
The end.
1. You know how sometimes I’ll disappear for a few weeks and when I come back there’s a totally new appearance to this place? (I don’t really expect you to know what I’m talking about, but trust me on this one.) My friend Zuyen (a.k.a. “Z”) and I have been putting all of our efforts towards the new blog and that’s where I’ve been. Of course, “all of our efforts” is a bit misleading. More like, some of our effort has been put towards the new blog when we can find the time to get together and talk about it.
2. Starting a blog with someone is tricky. Before Stephanie Harsh (and The Vamp Tramp and Chocolate and Whine) I started a blog with my two sisters and our mother. All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a, um, how should I say it…? Control freak. (I hide it pretty good though, right?) I had high hopes for that blog of ours… but then they started using smiley faces (oh, the horror!) in their blog posts which totally gave me hives and, eventually, I couldn’t take it. I don’t know what makes me think I can suddenly give up the control it takes to start a new blog with Z, but I told her about my aversion to smiley faces and abbreviations like “LOL,” so I’m crossing my fingers.
3. So, remember that whole I’m-getting-fatter-everyday-and-I-need-to-lose-weight thing I was telling you about? Yeah. Not going so well. My motivation comes and goes. I wish it came more often. Also, I wish I knew the triggers. My birthday is coming up and, for fuck’s sake, I’d like to look good. Or, at least better. Thinking about that has kept my unhealthy snacking habit to an all-time low. That and an e-mail I received from a friend who lectured me about not covering up. Which is totally what I was doing. (Sweatshirts. I admit it.) So, I went and bought a couple of new tops, sleeveless ones (despite the problematic underarm jiggly bits) and new earrings (I love earrings) and it’s amazing how getting all dolled up can totally change your way of thinking.
4. Speaking of books. Books are still taking up way too much of my time. Which might prove to be both good and bad for the new blog. On the one hand, lots of books means a lot to talk about. On the other hand, I worry that I won’t stop reading long enough to write anything. Quite the conundrum, that. Which is really not a conundrum at all. Life is good, peeps. Sometimes I’m surprised at just how much.
5. I know, I know… no one wants to hear about other people’s dreams. But get this. The other night I had a dream that my husband and I got back together. And in my dream I totally freaked out. I was all what have I done and this is a huge mistake. And then I went to church and bought this gigantic bible. Like, it was so big I could barely carry it. And I had to lug it up this hill that was so steep I had to pull myself along with a rope or risk falling to my death. Like, I was freaking climbing! And carrying this ginormous bible! Then I woke up. And in those first few minutes between dream and reality, I kept thinking I do not want to get back together. There’s still a lot of guilt, and there’s a part of me that hates myself for admitting that I don’t want to be married to my husband (that seems so awful)… but more and more I realize the rightness of the decision.
Not sure exactly what the huge bible had to do with anything, but I felt the dream lacked a bit of excitement if I left that part out. You’re welcome.
I don’t know what I’m trying to prove with this whole post-every-day-for-a-month thing. Oh, yeah. That I can FINISH SOMETHING. Blah blah blah. I should have challenged myself in February.
1. I’m having trouble sleeping. There, I admit it. I sleep too much, or not enough. I can’t fall asleep or stay asleep. It doesn’t help that I stay up late reading and wake to the fucking coffee grinder too early. I have bags under my eyes. Bags. Under my eyes. Making me look older than I am. Not cool.
2. A couple days ago I forgot my own age. I couldn’t remember if I was 28 or 29. I had to USE MY FINGERS and count it out. And, still, 29 didn’t sound right. Probably ’cause IT WASN’T. Today, a friend showed me how to COUNT CORRECTLY and, whew, I’m only 28. Thank goodness.
3. THE DOG LIKES HER WATER BOWL. (Fist pump.)
4. The bearings on my car are shot. I don’t know what that means, but apparently that’s why my car has been vibrating and making about as much noise as an 18-wheeler. I think this means I’m about to learn something new.
5. When I was younger, my dad used to make us play the What’s New game. We’d all sit down for dinner and we’d each take a turn sharing something new. There was only one rule: it didn’t count if anyone at the table had already heard it.
Some friends and I have been making a habit of going out to dinner. It’s our new thing. We take turns picking new restaurants. We eat too much, laugh a lot. It’s seriously great. Last Thursday, I made them play the What’s New game. It was the best way I could think of to get those of us that work together to stop talking about it. Total success.
So, peeps, what’s new?
Chocolate + Whine 