Cruelty

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My appointment with my therapist was just me raging about how awful people are. How bad at math, science and logistics they are. How indifferent and arrogant. How cruel.

I couldn’t possibly be affected by this, they say. It’s just them.

US.

Follow a boy with candy or a man jogging, shoot him dead and go on about your day as if you did nothing more than slap a mosquito. Kneel on a man’s neck, and let your face relax as if in meditation. Try to get a man killed because you don’t want to leash your dog.

“It's just that he does not seem to understand that cruelty is possible, with us.” - N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

Long Weekend

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People have taken to having picnics on blankets like the Seurat painting, not nearly 6ft apart. It’s cute.

I wanted it to rain all weekend. I wanted the weather to agree with my sadness. Instead the sun was bright and cheery, and people came out. It gets more crowded each Sunday for the Farmers’ Market. The Park wasn’t packed like Before, but it was full.

So few masks.

Groceries

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Cereal is delicious. I’ve been buying this organic faux Chex cereal from the Hippies (Wheatsville) since just pre-quarantine. I hadn’t bought a box of cereal in at least 10 years. Possibly more. I can’t get over how good it is.

I used to love cereal when I was a kid when mostly sugar cereals like Cap N Crunch and Frosted Flakes and Fruit Loops dominated. You would get up all by yourself, get a bowl of cereal, lay belly down, bowl in front of you to watch Saturday morning cartoons.

I’m sure I stopped eating cereal, even the ‘serious’ cereals like multi-grain Chex and Cheerios because of carbs. I got two new boxes. But I won’t eat them until the Covid cooties die from the boxes. I won’t open them for at least 48 hours, even though a rash of stories on the CDC’s report that claims Covid “does not spread easily” on surfaces or objects.

Easily. This article is not reassuring.

I Am Chidi

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This past weekend I did a bullet journal-goalsetting style… thingy. I wrote down all the things I wanted to do: writing, podcasting, learning, knitting, omg-don’t-forget-about self-care.

I looked at all of it and said, out loud, to no one because I was the only one there: “I can’t do all of this!”

Now I have to decide what to do. Or what not do. Or maybe do some of it a lot, or none of it sometimes, all of it moderately, which I fear will lead to completing none of it mostly.

My stomach hurts.

Happy New Year! - The Julia Calendar

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Happy Birthday to me.

I feel like that should be more exciting. 

Happy Birthday to Me! 

Yeah. That's more like it. Today is my new year. The day I start or restart resolutions. The first day - even the first month - of the Gregorian calendar year is too close the NOHS, so I start my new year now. On my birthday. 

Last year almost killed me: new (horrifying) administration, new (awful) commute, new (unfinished, constant construction noise) place of work, new (*&%#) hormones? 2017 just blew in so many ways.

What's happening in this new year? This, my birth day, was relaxing and without much celebrating. However, I'm going to Iceland in five days! And I'm moving in twenty days to a neighborhood I've wanted to live in for over a decade! 

So. There's that.

But I don't want to jinx 2018 by even implying that it will be better than 2018. I am not an optimist as I've said before. I firmly believe the glass is half empty, and there's a golf ball hurtling towards it. But this year... Hope is an action verb. 

Happy New Year.