Content Is My Jam!

     I’ve let the gray grass grow; I present as the X generation, but my natural ebullience will leave you baffled. (I may be old to you, but I saw all the cool bands)

     Unattachment to societal conformity is my key to successful maturity and awareness. Comical, but no fan of the ‘Jackass’ crowd. Educated, but can’t afford to get that degree, yet. Globally appreciative, without the passport. I get excitable chills when I discover something I never knew before is actually a thing! (i.e. Rosca de Reyes v. Mardi Gras king cake)

     However, everyone has those days. Osteo pain can make me a bitch, but no one dares call me on my surliness. Why would they? They can’t do anything about it. Letting me vent will definitely help. (Though, I think they’re afraid of my taser)

     Thankfully, we live the era now that won’t tolerate the misinformed & insensitive: “If you’re not walking in my shoes, then back off; you can’t possibly know how this feels, and be glad you don’t!” can be snarled. (If they snarl back just to snarl, their name’s Karen---cue eyeroll)

     When you’ve lived more than half your existence with ailment no prescription will alleviate, you create your own helpful life hacks. I own mad skills at targeting exactly where a cereal box will land in my scooter-grocery cart, from a quick tip-over with my mobility cane; right between the coffee filters and Minute Maid carton.
     So, no, I don’t need your help, kind stranger. I’ve got it down due to necessity.

     Oh, but don’t get me wrong--I’d never treat a bookstore the same way! Lawd, no! I’d rather search multiple aisles of tall shelves for that bored, knit-capped-pseudo-hipster employee, and pump up his ego for his help in reaching for that Stephen King/J.D. Robb/John Grisham/James Patterson, et al that’s just outta my reach. A book in my hands always gets the knit cap a genuine smile and a ‘Thank you.’

     Yah, you’ve just figured out why my blog has been its own deserted island-of-misfit-toys; can’t decide which I love more: reading, or writing. Oh, I DO write, but I can be pretty brutal to my work. No, it’s not in a pile of crushed up paper balls. How stereo-troped is that? Nah, it still lives and breathes in my composition books. I just need to edit it all so that it no longer reads the way I’d originally written it.
     Talk about ‘gate-keeping’ at its snottiest.

     I think I just hurt my brain. Sorry, bones. You’ll have to take a back-seat for a while.

 Credit: Bill Schorr

Mirror

My mirror doesn’t tell me I’m getting older. It does say to me that I’m changing, but not in the ways society says it is. Those who know I attempt to be a clever writer might say that my ‘play-on-words’ statements make sense perhaps only to me.

Example? ‘I’m youthful because I have no youth.’

Hah.

Childfrees get it. I don’t act as old, or look as tired as parents. I grow gray hair—that I’ll cover with bottled color—simply because my hair is changing with age. I see that my skin hangs slightly, but not so greatly from age as much as weight loss. When I was heavier, the mirror showed me younger, too. My Mah used to say the fat smoothed out any wrinkles gained from age. The mirror recognizes some shadowing under my eyes, but that was sadness, not lack of sleep from a crying baby, or a teenager flouting a curfew.

It’s none of your business what the melancholy was about. It comes and it goes normally. What’re you wistful about? My dejectedness only lasts long enough for me to remember I can visit Powell’s Books at the drop of a hat. To type away at a blog very few read. (Apparently, I have a minute fan base in Russia; really can’t tell if that’s a good thing at the moment)

And the mirror also tells me what one of my brothers impulsively revealed a while back. “You’re kind of starting to look like Mah.” Okay, most daughters DON’T want to be anything like their mothers. And, I’m not fooling myself by saying I don’t act like she did; I know I don’t because I’m a Gemini, and she was a Leo. Totally different identities.

In any case, I don’t mind the reflection resembling her. It makes the one brother happy. It makes me content because it means I don’t fully resemble my father—aged thirty-plus years older, and recently admitting the wisdom in asking my youngest brother to string up the house’s Xmas lights. I’ve promised Da I won’t tease him about his Sunday morning ‘church nod’ anymore as long as he stays off that damn ladder. (Shudder!)

The mirror at work makes me look even younger; coffee-themed, Covid face-mask, safety goggles, and 26dB protective ear-muffs. That’s when the shadowy eyes are revealed more; late-night writing rather than sleeping. My fault, but I’d never complain—caffeine fixes everything. ☕

I’m not one to look deeply in the mirror for signs of ageing, or to cover it with a trowel of foundation. Olay moisturizer, sure. Noticing it’s time to color, yah! The only thing about my reflection that makes me grimace is the McConnell-style turkey neck I’ll eventually end up with. Lawd, I hope I have enough in savings for a neck-lift!

But mostly, my mirror reflects an independent person who knows how to look out for herself. What I don’t know, the internet, and the Golden Girls, will teach me.

Mute

Fifteen minutes away, and yet we haven’t spoken in over two years.
Clueless, question once asked, received erringly, followed by a devastating blow of misunderstanding. Speechlessness ever since. Colleagues recognize my recent lack of witty charm and light.
Rumblings of hurtful nastiness are leaked to me. Bipolar disorder is mumbled as a possibility for her character. Leaving another’s inability to cope, but holding onto reliably militant expectations, elsewhere. There is comfort in knowing what to do.
Sleeping on the narrow fold-out brings rest, peace, family that asks no questions. We’re here. That’s all he needs. We may be roommates one day. I can’t tell. I just don’t want him hurting himself. Do I have to jackhammer it into his head that he’s not a failure? Probably.
Others have likely thought the same of me. But I’m still here. Always learning new things I didn’t think I would need to know. Improving my situation takes time and patience. I have that patience, despite my Gemini status. In the two years spent, I’ve learned there’s two types of Geminis; Me, and her. Pragmatic, and flaky. (After all, how long can someone spend renovating a house)
We used to relate quite well. My ‘Sister-from-another-Mister’. The loneliness from what’s been lost is palpable. I used to think time would heal the rift. But I put hope in the rear-view mirror long ago. Doesn’t matter anymore that my ‘witness’ name is on a marriage certificate.  An eyeroll is my only response to the outrage she feels when I’ve failed to acknowledge birthdays of those I’m not even allowed to see.
That didn’t stop him from coming over, at my request. Or, from me baking his birthday cake, and the smile I received when he opened his present. Within 24 hours, he’d accidently spilled coffee on it. (Best kind of liquid ‘baptism’ in my book)
The new prescription I’m on will go further in my attitude adjustment. Maybe it’ll even enhance the pragmatism. As for the patience, it only lasts so long when there’s pizza in the oven. 

Bibulous

     Pretty much anything reported on CNN these days would drive a person to drink, so the advice from experts about

powering off the daily media diet is something we already know how to do. And yet, not easy to do when you make a point

of staying digitally hooked up into what’s going on in the world. Perhaps over a beer?

     Making mask-wearing the new normal/adapted lifestyle would’ve been unheard of last Halloween. I’m wondering if

kids take a little of that fun spirit with them each day during this ‘universal precautions’ level of self-care.  And, I’m sure

the rug-rat squad shocked themselves in realizing how much they actually miss school. We’ve heard parents are getting

more grumblings from their offspring about having to be home-schooled, in lieu of feigned illness so that they wouldn’t

have to, ya know, actually go to school. 

     (The easy, smirky thing my folks would’ve said here? “Where was a pandemic when my kids were that age??”)

    And, yes, alcohol sales had rocketed 55% by March 2020, which was right around the time I had my first absinthe

experience. (Also 55% ABV. And no, it’s not banned) I have yet to imbibe to the point of seeing the Green Fairy; I’m not a

wuss, I just know my limitations, and I’d prefer to like absinthe, rather than dread its choke-worthy intensity. (Rum &

Coke have nothing on Absinthe-n-A&W)

   Anyway, in the last several months, we’ve suddenly been given the gift of more time for self-reflection, experimentation,

imagination, and indulgence. (And, in my case, writing)   

   But like the multitudes, I dreaded that my employment would be deemed ‘non-essential’; manufacturing can be feast or

famine, and I grew a keen sense of fear of screwing up—I ended up micromanaging myself. (I absolutely would’ve hidden

the unwrapped chocolates just to stay employed) 

     Banking each hour and each day that went by—leading me to back off my Amazon neediness—I didn’t dare flaunt my

‘essentialness’, staying true to the ‘Corona-sans-lime’ regimen of hand-washing, Lysol-wipes-cleaning, and social

distancing practices my employer expected of me.

     And, I don’t need a closed, then open, then closed again bar or pub for a drink, or a crowd. I’m not a big drinker

anyway, no matter how much CNN/Huffpost/NPR says the sky is falling. And a socially distanced, mask-wearing crowd

can be found in lots of places. (I won’t be getting on a plane in the long foreseen future, but a movie theatre would be nice)

     In the meantime, I’ll embrace all my blessings, rather than count them; I don’t wanna be the whiny kid making a hoax

claim stink that their opponent cheated in the electoral college ‘popularity’ vote. (Cue eye-roll)