Constance

My thoughts are full of nostalgia, good and bad. Is that what getting older gets you? 

This blog started and was named in a different life where I was a different person. We had cats and sunny California days most of the year. I was still getting used to not working 60-80 hours on my feet, trying to find my way as a housewife, making my own schedules. Sunday afternoons were spent hanging around, checking out the farmer's market, watching TV, working in the garden, going on walks.

There is no more glaring of cats in my life. They got sick and old and died. There is a small dog now, no glaring at all. Much enthusiastic barking and eating off the table when we aren't looking. We are not in sunny California anymore, but California's opposite of Seattle. I work many more hours than 60-80 on my feet, but they are like ephemera, uncounted and uncared for. Sunday mornings start very early with screams of delight or anger, depending on the children's moods as they awaken. The afternoons revolve around the odd birthday party or child activity or monitoring how much television is enough. 

And more importantly, I am a different person now. I am not so full of desire to keep everyone happy at the expense of myself.  I keep thinking how I just want to enjoy life, not fight for every thing. There is potential, but it feels like every hill I climb, enjoyment of life is just over the next one and I am getting tired of climbing. 

On the other hand, I have before, settled in the past and found what happiness I could with what I had and declared it good enough for now. But I don't want to do that anymore. Good enough for now isn't good enough. Being able to be flexible and fine with things, to put up with things as is, to have tolerance for behaviors and attitudes; I prided myself on this. But I don't want to be that person anymore. Because all that tolerance and giving and flexibility just led to more and the good enough for right now turned into needing to be good with it forever. Besides, being flexible and having a high tolerance for negative things apparently doesn't get you any accolades or better behavior from others. They learn to expect it and to secretly resent you in bitterness for your perceived weaknesses.

So I look back to earlier years with some wishes, golden sunny longing.  But I know what sacrifices were being made, what paths were being forged silently, invisibly. I think of those lazy afternoons and see them as a quick stitch, holding two sides together. I see those smiles in the pictures and I know what thoughts were going on behind those eyes. That one tiny second and things looked joyful and warm. 

Nostalgia. Different lives. Different me. Different us.

All that goes to the question then, perhaps I should change the name? Something more fitting with my life now? Something more in tune with who I am as a person now? Maybe it's time to stop the Glaring? 

Or do I keep going for nostalgia's sake?

Barracuda

She stands there in her teal seafoam sleeveless party dress, all the fanciest hair clips.

Just finished her avocado sushi roll with soy sauce poured directly on top, fresh from Ballard Market.

Swiping up through hundreds of pictures of barracuda fish, some barracuda cars, and the random headshot of some white business exec man.

This is what she needs to do while listening to Barracuda, by Heart on repeat.  Eternally, or until I need a break and cut it off, whichever comes first.

This is her ritual. Turn the music on by screaming at Alexa to play Barracuda and then scroll through every freaking picture of barracuda on the internet, ever.

Every so often an exclamation of “Whoa, that’s a big barracuda!” And at the completion of the song, a blasé “Alexa, play!” Without taking her eyes off the phone screen.

And just so you know, “Oooh! Look at this lion Fish! Lion fish are poisonous,” pause, “you never want to touch a lion fish.”

Back to scrolling.

Putain

Dear little devil ball,
Your time is limited and you have been given your eviction notice effective immediately.

Good bye little devil ball. And take your nasty friends with you. I look forward to your dissection and slicing and dicing and I hope to never see your like again.

No more sleepless nights while you tug and pull and pinch and poke and cause screaming pain and fainting spells. No more feeling sick and stuffed and crapping constantly. Good bye, devil ball!

I don't know how long you have been there, but your time is up and I am more than happy to see you go. You have been a nightmare and I am glad to see you gone.

Bye bitch bye

the wide, wide world

I was released into the wild yesterday!

I packed up my bag with essentials like Energy Vitamin Water, real water, laptop, one moleskin sketchbook, one moleskin journal...and the small pocket full of pens, erasers, pencils, pencil sharpeners...and aspirin.  I always keep aspirin with me...but literally...in case I should feel the onset of a heart attack...I'm serious.  Moving on!

Anyway! I packed all this up in order to leave M and give her some needed time to herself (it was a Christmas present, she loves it!).  I hiked on up to the Anthropology Museum (which is free) and just breezed on in.

Trick or Treat

A bag of Halloween candy. That smell. 

My kids went trick or treating, both of them for real this year. And I found myself...well, eating a shit ton of the candy but also just inhaling the scent of it in the bag. 

Smells bring back memories, of course. This one is just a strong but good one. An actual happy set of memories from childhood from that smell of mixed candy in a bag. But specifically Halloween candy. Because Christmas candy has a lot of peppermint and cinnamon going on and Easter smells like chocolate and jelly beans and Valentine’s smells like Red 40. But Halloween candy is the best. At least for me the smell evokes an uncomplicated holiday for children.

We aren’t required to be good or have subtle religious guilt about candy versus Jesus or buying things to show our love to get candy...we just get to play dress up as our favorite or spookiest characters and going around collecting candy from the neighbors. It’s perfect. 

My kid’s candy collection smells a bit different than mine did. Mine included Mary Janes and Bit o’ Nut, and like, freaking Necco wafers, and a lot of Smarties (not the British kind, the chalky American kind)...so there was an aroma of faint Pepto Bismal and fake peanut butter crackle to the bags of the 80s and early 90’s.  People have decided to be more generous about their offerings it seems...in our current neighborhood at least. My kid’s candy smells richer, more chocolate and higher end gummies, although I did see some smarties in there. (Like cockroaches, they persist through the decades). 

It is still a heady mix of sugar and fat smell, plastic wrapper and bleached paper lolly sticks.

It brings me memories of chilly nights tromping around the neighborhood with friends, sweating in my mask, making plans to go to the bigger houses for full size bars, freezing some years in an early snow, gathering at a friend’s house to count, sort, and trade, drinking warm cider, and the smell of singed pumpkin.  Altogether pleasant and homey. 

Halloween candy smell can still put a smile on my face, bring me back to happy times. It can feel even better than eating a ton of Reese’s cups..maybe...though I have to admit, that’s a close one.

Let's talk zombies

Apropos of nothing: Let's talk zombies.

I have been watching the zombie shows and some of the movies and even reading some zombie books over the last couple years and I have a few questions that others seem unable to answer.

1). In almost every zombie story, the walking dead are moaning or grunting or rasping or some such. Ok, so I can see this in the recently undeceased according to certain canon wherein the need for fresh brains keeps them shuffling along and therefore, in their extremely lowered IQ brains, this is articulated through freshly dead lungs and larynx as "braaaaains!"

Cool cool cool.

But, in most of the modern versions of zombie lore, there is no need for brains, just some rabies-like urge to nibble on the living. No need to scream about brains when you, as an undead, are fine with an elbow or the occasional spare rib.

And, in addition to that, most modern zombies are well past their sell by date. Rarely do you see or read about super fresh zombies with all their parts intact, flesh bits and throat chunks all in place to have the ability to moan about anything.

So, my major question with zombie stuff currently is how or why do the zombies all make the rasping, groaning, grunting noises?

I can't freaking figure it out! It's sort of driving me crazy, this question.

-Zombies don't breath, so there is no air in the lungs

-Zombies are driven primarily by some residual lizard brain hunger, no need to grunt

-Zombies are hunters, why alert the prey?

-A high percentage of modern zombies are so desiccated they don't physically have the parts with which to make these throat and mouth noises

Serrrsly, drives me nuts thinking about it.

2). Why do zombies even have this primal urge to eat?

I mean, if you think about it, it doesn't make sense unless you think about newly undead as if they are newly born. Newborns are super hungry and pissed off, so maybe that's it.

But yo, there are a lot of other primal urges too that zombies don't seem to share;

Pooping, peeing, thirst, and sex come to mind. You never see a zombie orgy with libations and crap piles lying around...

3). I will leave it at three for now, cause otherwise this thing goes on too long and I am quite sure the reader's attention span has ceased long ago with my zombie rants.

If zombies are propelled by their faulty undead brains, at what point in their decay does the brain no longer function even in the most rudimentary way?

Why doesn't high heat (melting the brains) work?

Why doesn't electrocution work (cooking the brains)?

Why doesn't severe decay work (when the rest of the zombie is basically a skeleton, dry and dusty, the brain would, I assume, be so too)?

Answer me people. ANSWER ME!

Eye Catching!

I was just reading a thing the other day about how to write the perfect blog post.

The first point is to make an eye-catching title, cause without that, no one is going to look any further anyway.

There was stuff in there about bullet points and breaking it up into pieces and something something something...oh...relatable?  Whatever.  The title thing got me though.

Eye Catching!

So...but, literally, right? Maybe if it's the actual title (not literally as in it will literally catch your eye...that would be ground for a lawsuit and probably impossible with current technology...) is that enough?

• write about something relatable
• like frog rains?
• cat whiskers?
• baby farts?
• um, use bullet points
• to make it look like digestible information
• always remember to make at least two points per bullet shape, otherwise there's no point to the....point (see what I did there?)

oh dude.  I have always been iffy on the outlines as is.  

Next thing I remember is about putting in the perfect image to illustrate your topic.  Well, considering I am (bullet point) too lazy to figure out inserting pictures and (bullet point) think that a post about writing a blog serves as the very image to illustrate writing a blog (SO META!); eff that.

Digestible chunks.

ok, so, mission accomplished? 

yeah.  Let's say that.  Mission accomplished.

Boom! blog post to go down in history, yo!

(but now I am seriously thinking about technology that would allow the user to physically pluck someone's eye viewing the screen...something akin to the creepy Japanese kissing machine connected via the interwebz?  Now I've squicked myself out...bleh...mechanical, remote-control tonguing...shudder.)

Fortunately I do not have to rely on these things for my ego or my paycheck so I can just sort of, um, "write" stuff here with crappy content, lame-o titles, no bullet points ever, and excuses about the image of letters on screen being the most poignant picture needed for a blog entry on blog entries....and digestible chunks.  I just like saying, "digestible chunks," makes me think of fondue, for some reason.

And! I can be a scatter-brained widget.  Hurray!

And! I can use a lot of exclamations....though it appears, after reading tons of other people's blogs, that using tons of exclamations doesn't really drive readers away.  hm.

Random thought of the moment, "ohmygawd...it's still February" yeesh.

Welcome to the boring, rattling-beans-in-can blog post of the inside of my mind.  Thank you for reading to the end.  I leave you with....nothing! (Eye Catching!) 

• I give you
• permission
• to vacate
• the premises

• Adios Muchachas