THE SECRET LIFE OF ALBUS THE CAT

Albus tends to shy away from strangers. He will walk through the pet door, through the kitchen and turn the corner into the living room. If he sees unfamiliar faces, that means six more weeks of winter. If our visitors have dogs with them, we won’t see Albus for the remainder of their visit. That is why I was surprised to see him stretched out on my bed Saturday night when Chad and Jess were here. Albus’s ear had a cut that was actively bleeding and a scratch over one eye. This is typical. We’ve seen this before on him. Michael went to move Albus from the bed so I could go to sleep, but I stopped him. “No, let him stay in here with me and Josephine tonight.”

Usually, this is a big no. I will say that Josephine and the cat do less arguing about who is going to sleep where these days, but two pets in the bed is bit much for me. I always wake up in the middle of the night, sweating because one of them is pressed the length of their body to my right side and the other has pressed the length of their body to my left. Which is exactly what happened on this night. Nothing unusual. The next day, I saw Albus laying in various places around the house. This too is normal. At bedtime the next evening, I noticed Albus curled up in the dog crate that is in my room. This is also normal. The crate is right next to a heater vent. This time, Michael put his foot down and went to remove the cat from the crate, but when Albus got up, we could see that he was walking with a serious limp.

Michael did a thorough check and nothing seemed broken or out of place. Albus was able to hop up to his food. He could hobble out side. The next day, he had even hobbled down to the basement. Monday evening, he hobbled over and got into my lap. I gently petted his head and asked him a string of questions that I wish he could answer. “Were you hit by a car?” “Were you attacked by a coyote?” “Was it an altercation with a raccoon?” “Can you tell us what happened to you?” He blinked and continued to purr, refusing to answer. When I moved the fur around on the back of his neck, I could see scratches. He acts like none of it bothers him, yet I have fretted over that dummy for days. I hate the not knowing, but I’m pretty convinced he was in an altercation with a big dog. I can imagine the wounds on the back of his neck was from being shook like a rag doll.

This morning, Albus was barely walking with a limp. He’s much improved. He was sitting in the kitchen looking pretty smug, watching me put away dishes. I looked down at him and asked “Are you plotting your revenge?” He yawned and swished his tail to the side. I’m pretty sure that means he is definitely plotting something.

HOURS

Chad sent me a text asking if they could spend the night at our place Saturday night. They had been on the road in eight to ten hour stretches for over a week. I told him that there would be clean sheets and a warm bed for them and tacos. They arrived that evening, road weary, with their two dogs who were in desperate need of leg stretches. I gathered them all inside and then we kicked all of the dogs out to the backyard to bark it out. By bark it out, I mean Josephine had to explain the house rules to Sadie and Mabel. Loudly.

We ate. We laughed. We played games. We laughed even more. At one point, The Cabbage asked us “How do you guys know each other?” Chad and I looked at each other and shrugged. Chad replied “We met online.” Our story that we’ve explained to people so many times has finally become something we can now reduce to a simple three word sentence. That night, I dreamed of landing at an airport and then having to hitch hike home. When I arrived, Chris was there. He was still sick, but he was better. He said “I think the treatments are woking.” I don’t remember anything else from the dream, but I woke up early the next morning to find Chad sitting on the couch in our living room. I sat down at the opposite end of the couch and pulled my feet up underneath me for warmth.

This is the second time this month I have sat in this same position, in my pajamas with sleep crusty eyes and hair poking out at odd angles on top of my head, talking and visiting with Chad. The two of us are always the early birds and we end up whispering to each other while everyone else is asleep. It reminds me of that Folger’s commercial at Christmas when the older brother comes home to surprise the family. His kid sister is the only one that sees him sneak in during the early morning hours and they meet in the kitchen where she settles herself on a kitchen counter while he makes coffee. This is a rabbit hole thought that leads to the ongoing joke Chris and I had about a monkey’s paw, a joke he found so funny that I found a drawer in his desk filled with plastic monkey paw keychains.

Then, all too quickly, we were saying our goodbyes at 7 AM.

It seems inherent to always want more even though our relationship formed on less.

Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities. - Paul Simon

I thought that was the Bangles for the longest time, but discovered it is a Paul Simon original.

Time, time, time…..

Quality over quantity. This is the real lesson I am learning here.

I think the treatments are working.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Today, I’d like to celebrate the relativity of time. I know there is a lot of love/hate feelings regarding Daylight Savings Time and the idea of ‘loosing an hour’. My alarm is set for 5:25 AM (yes, it’s a specifically weird time to get up, I have my reasons), but for the last month I have been waking up at 4:25. This totally screws up any notion of getting up at 5:25. So, I thought that the time change was going to work in my favor.

It did not. Still waking up at 4:25, except now with serious low back pain.

Yay!

Thanks to this whole pain situation, I am constantly moving my body and have had the most consistent yoga practice that I have had in months. Stillness invites pain.

While everyone was celebrating Pi Day, somewhere in the Metaverse, Chris and I were off celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. It has been twenty five years since we graduated undergrad. I have had my Yoga Teacher Training certificate for fourteen years. I have lived in Kansas City for twelve years, one of those years was with Chris. A year and a half of that time was spent alone. Michael and I have been together for ten years this June. The Cabbage turns thirteen in September. All of this feels like yesterday. All of this feels like now. All of this feels like the future.

All of this is relative.

Rather than finding ourselves in everything, we are challenged daily to find everything in ourselves, till being human is evolving inwardly in the likeness of everything, shaping ourselves to the wonders we find, unlike birds, who have known this forever, we too make song at the mere appearance of light. - Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Recently there was a video put together at work to celebrate International Women’s Day. I did not participate, but I watched and listened as a number of my colleagues listed all of the different hats they wear besides the scientist hat. I thought about my own hat collection and how we are all more than just one thing, how often we are challenged to be more than just one thing. I love all of my hats or at least most of them. There are some hats I would not own if time was different. There are hats in my collection because time is different. I do have one constant in all of this relativity. An hour ahead. An hour behind. Years ago and years ahead. In the right now. I have always greeted the day in search of light. It is not naivety, but self preservation.

This is the thing that guides me as I navigate the strange and wild passage of time.

THE JOKE

There’s a joke I’ve been told a few times and every time I hear it, I don’t think it’s funny. I’ve heard it told two different ways now. The first telling I’ve heard goes something like this: A woman is in a grocery store at the checkout line. She’s placing her items on the checkout belt. Things like a salad kit, rotisserie chicken, some fruit….usual items. There’s a drunk man standing in line behind her watching as she unloads her basket. The man slurs as he loudly says “You must be single!” The woman turns, and asks “why do you think that?” The man, swaying on his feet, looks at the items the woman is purchasing and then back at her and responds “Because you’re so fucking ugly.”

It took me some time to really unravel what it is about this joke that I don’t find funny. It’s more than I just don’t think it’s funny; this joke makes my skin crawl. It’s because this is not a joke, but is a true story. Ladies, please raise your hand if you have ever had an unpleasant interaction with a drunk man. I can’t see you, but I suspect we are all raising our hands right now. I can’t help but believe that this ‘joke’ started out with one woman recounting the horrible experience she had while grocery shopping to a friend and then like a real shitty game of telephone, the story got passed around until it found a group of sorority boys who turned it into a joke. This so called joke then got passed around through the man-vine and became the antidote for every time a woman didn’t give them the desired attention they were looking for.

A joke can be used as a weapon.

This joke is the reason why women feel the pressure and need to always smile and please and placate. We have learned from experience that the drunk guy most likely will not stop at “you’re fucking ugly” but will continue to harass her all the way out the door. He may even follow her down the side walk, hurling slurs and attempting to touch, or grab. The drunk guy is dangerous. In most every situation, the drunk guy is dangerous. We are either tolerating the unwanted attention with a fake smile plastered to our faces or we are fighting off the unwanted attention, fake smile still in place because we are still trying to placate the drunk guy. Not because we are interested. We are never interested or charmed by this behavior. We do it all for our safety.

Not surprisingly, I have never heard a woman tell this joke because we all know the drunk guy in that story and we’ve all had relatable experiences. In fact, I wonder how funny the joke becomes when the circumstances are flipped. Recently, I heard a retelling of this joke. In his version of this joke, he’s the one the drunk guy is talking to, he’s the one the drunk guy calls ‘ugly’. The man telling this version of the joke did it so well that I didn’t even recognize it as being the same joke. His version was self deprecating, but also he had nothing to fear in this story. The man who told me this version is physically imposing. It took me a minute to see that this version did make me chuckle because there was no threat here. This version didn’t make me feel threatened.

Still, even with the change, this joke just isn’t funny. It’s mean and I’ve never found humor in meanness. The only fix I can come up with for this joke it to burn it.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Wednesday was a lot. It was dark and dreary and rainy, but when I came down the steps at work to walk towards the coffee machine, I was greeted with a bright, beautiful mandala that had been made in celebration of Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors, Spring and Love. Wednesday was what would have been my Dad’s eighty fourth birthday, but at the same time, it is also my sister’s birthday. So it was a little bit sad because there are days when I really need my Dad and I miss him, but at the same time I love my sister and want her to know that every year she survives is one worth celebrating.

Wednesday was also International Women’s Day. It feels like a forced made up holiday, which it kind of is. Then I watched a TikTok of One’s CEO Gayle Smith discussing Women’s Day and she said that International Women’s Day is not so much a celebration of women, but a commitment to support women every day of the year. This is an idea I really like. In fact, it is a mindset I can apply to many of these types of celebration days. I’m generally frustrated with months that celebrate the history of cultures that should have just been included in my history lessons to begin with. So instead of being frustrated with limiting ourselves to a month, I can channel that energy into committing myself to the continued learning of Black History or Hispanic History or Women’s history or you know…ALL history.

Gayle Smith threw out some pretty yucky statistics regarding women and the pandemic. There was an increase in domestic violence and abuse, an increase in child brides and more women left the work force. During the lockdown, many women took on the roles of child care provider and teacher all while attempting to work remotely. Many of us were burning our candles not just at both ends, but by setting the whole thing into the fire pit. When the lock down was over, there was an increase in women not returning to the workforce. As a woman, it feels like every day is a little bit of a battle for equality, but I never felt like I was on a losing side of this fight until 2020. Since that time, the punches have gotten surprisingly harder. We’ve lost the rights to our own bodies. Missouri House of Representatives just this year passed a law that requires women to “cover their arms” while in the House. The law details a specific dress code for women without any mention of how a man should dress. One would think that the Missouri House of Representatives would have more important things worry about, but apparently not.

We are in the mother fucking trenches, ladies.

But ladies, there is no better company to be in the trenches with.

When you’re a woman, everything is political

- feminists cite millions of women in public and private conversations as the phrase's collective authors.

We are a collective of care givers and general life support, but most importantly, we are a collective of warriors. I’ve surrounded myself with a pretty kick ass collective of women warriors and today, I am thankful for every single one of you.

I'M NAKED

It was a typical Saturday morning. I was at Heirloom, eating a biscuit sandwich and writing in my Fortune Cookie journal, and I watched as a young family came in, a mom, dad and a little girl who was maybe three. She was carrying her baby doll while Mom carried a basket of Shopkins. They settled in at a table in my eyesight and I watched as the mom peeled the child’s sweater off, hearing the crackling of static as it came over the kid’s head. The little one’s hair stood out, charged with electricity and she yelled out “I’m naked!” The mom chuckled and then calmly responded “You are not naked. You have on a t-shirt.” But the little one insisted. “I’m naked!” She proceeded to randomly let all of us know that she was naked as she colored and stuffed bits of cinnamon roll into her little mouth.

Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that doll she came in with was also naked but then I started to really relate to this kid.

“I’m naked” is just another way to say “I feel vulnerable.” I am naked. I feel naked. I can feel my nakedness under these clothes and sometimes, okay … a lot of the time, it makes me want to put on more clothes. Some of this stems from being two months into the year and still not back on my usual moving routine. I can feel my skin actually touching my clothes and have been conditioned to believe that skinny girls do not allow this to happen. I have also been conditioned to believe that I will never be a skinny girl. The “I feel vulnerable” side to all of this is that I have put myself out there for some things that’s a little outside my comfort level. There’s book club where I reveal hidden wishes and an art show that got bumped to September but where I noticed that I am the only photographer in the line up. I continue to wear a shoulder strap that forces my heart to be open. One of my so called ‘bad girl’ wishes is to take some nude pictures of myself and others. I am full into a I hate my body moon phase. Probably because I’m not lifting weights or training for a marathon or doing any of the things this capitalist fitness industry says I should be doing. I refuse to fall for the “Eat this to lose weight!” click bait, but only barely. This is perfect timing for taking off all of my clothes and taking pictures of myself.

Pile on the vulnerability!

Recently, I dreamed that my friend Sarah Fox and I bought matching jumpsuits. I was in love this thing. It was high waisted with wide legs and a sexy deep v type of halter top. It was perfect, except for the whole halter top thing. I don’t know how Sarah didn’t have this problem, but my halter top would not stay in place and every time I looked down I’d have a boob peeking out from this way or that way. I was constantly tucking myself back in. We were on some kind of roadtrip and we were on a road that contained epically stunning views at every curve and hill top. At one point, I noticed that Sarah was asleep at the wheel and I said “Hey, Sarah. Wake up.” and then we laughed and laughed about it for miles. Our lives where clearly in danger but we didn’t care. In fact, we found it hilarious.

Every curve and hill, a stunning view.

Exposed and vulnerable and finding it all to be immensely hilarious.

SIX

I think it was during the lock down when Talaura sent me a link to a soundtrack and told me to listen. It was the soundtrack for the musical Six and that soundtrack made its way into my daily listening playlist. It got played so often that the Cabbage discovered it in our shared Amazon music account and they started listening to it. So when Six was on the touring list for Kansas City this year, I bought tickets for the two of us. My first instinct is to tell you that this musical is like Spice Girls as the wives of Henry the Eighth, but that is a true simplification of the underlying fuck the patriarchy story that this musical tells.

It all starts out as a competition to decide which one of Henry’s wives had it the worst. Of the six, there were two divorces, two beheadings, one natural death and one survivor and history has not been kind when telling the stories for these six women. Because history is generally unkind when it comes to telling a woman’s story. I’ve heard a number of historical recounting in which at least three of Henry’s wives are described as manipulative and conniving. For sure, it was all of their own faults for whatever fate befell them. Even history lessons tell us that woman are asking for it, it’s the victim’s fault.

While The Cabbage and I sat waiting for the show to start, I overheard the two older ladies behind us discussing these women.

Isn’t one of them Anne Boleyn?

Yeah, well she angled for him for a while before he finally went for it.

What is not so funny about what I over heard is that it sounds very similar to an article I read with historian Hayley Nolan, author of Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies. Anne Boleyn left court for at least a year to avoid Henry the Eight’s advances. Yet he still pursued her with written love letters.

The historians who do acknowledge this say it was a calculated tactic and sexual blackmail — the ultimate example of ‘when a girl says no, she really means yes. - Hayley Nolan

There’s a word we use now to describe his behavior. It’s HARASSMENT.

History has highlighted the so called faults of these six women. Temptress. Tease. Unable to produce a male heir. Didn’t look like their portrait. Conniving. Manipulative. Let me remind you. These women were Queens. Anne Boleyn was influential in passing the Poor Law which would require local officials to find work for the unemployed. Not to mention she birthed a daughter who would become one of the most powerful and longest reigning Queens in history. Catherine Parr, Henry’s last wife, was well educated and pushed forward education reform for women. Which one of them had it the worst and was asking for it?

The answer is none of them. None of those women truly wanted to marry Henry the Eighth. He treated his wives so badly that he made sure history would too. Henry the Eighth was the original Harvey Wienstein, except he was worse. Not only did he ruin reputations but he was a murderer of women. He’s the historical figure that should be forgotten. The patriarchy wants to pit us women against each other because it distracts us from the injustices they are doing to us.

You want to burn down the patriarchy? Stop falling for their bullshit distractions.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Monday evening, Michael and I picked Chad up from the rental car place at the airport. Then we picked up a to-go order of too much BBQ, took it back to our place and ate too much food while talking about all of the things. The next morning, I made Chad and I breakfast and we sat on the couch talking about even more things while Michael left for work. Chad had to be in Blue Springs at 10:00AM that morning to get training on and pick up his and Jess’s new camper van. I drove him out there and we unloaded all of his gear into a waiting room where we sat and talked about his workshop until an employee came in to discuss paperwork with Chad. Then Chad and I had the weirdest, most awkwardly rushed goodbye. We cried in front of strangers and then I practically ran from the building.

I had taken the whole day off from work because I didn’t really know what the plan was going to be. So when I got home, I cleaned the salty tear streaks from my face and made a lemon meringue pie. Because when life gives you lemons, you make lemon meringue pies. I had promised my coworkers a lemon meringue pie for Valentine’s Day and never delivered. This was me keeping a partial promise. I don’t make this pie but maybe once or twice a year. There’s just more work involved in making it then there is to quickly throwing together an apple pie. Ten of the eggs have to be separated, six lemons have to be zested and then those six lemons have to be juiced. I don’t have a citrus juicer and all of this has to be done by hand. The pie crust has to be made, baked and cooled before you start building the custard. And then making the filling requires me to stand at the stove with my bowl set up over a pot of simmering water, just constantly stirring until the contents of the bowl starts to thicken. That takes about fifteen minutes. The meringue is the easiest part. I start off in the double bowler, heating the egg whites and sugar just until the sugar melts. Then it gets transferred to the mixer and I can take a break.

But the end results are worth it.

I thought about our rushed, weird goodbye as I stirred pie filling and thought about other times I’d had to say hasty goodbyes to those I love. Nothing tops that one time Talaura put a giant cookie in my hands, said “Iloveyoubye!” and shoved me off the bus at LaGuardia. I don’t remember ever really saying goodbye to Chris. I remember when he stopped making any sense and being overwhelmed with not being able to do enough to ease his pain, but I wasn’t home when he died. The nurse called me ten minutes after I got to work. Chris didn’t even give me a cookie before shoving me off the bus and this is not where I planned for this post to go, but here we are.

Goodbyes are hard.

Chad and I had less than twenty four hours to pack in all the words and laughter, to actually look at each others’ faces while we told each other as much as we could about what has really been happening since the last time we saw each other or talked on the phone. I always want more time though, which adds to the difficulties in saying goodbyes. Today, I am concentrating on the time we were gifted and not the goodbye.

Today, I am concentrating on the art of not saying goodbye.

THE BIRDS

In the late afternoon on Saturday, Michael drove me an hour and half north to see hundreds of thousands of birds. And it was spectacular. I did not see a single Canadian goose for once. Instead, we saw swans, little ducks that I think were surf scooters, eagles and so many snow geese. There was a grass fire and hundreds of thousands of snow geese flying around which made for some dramatic shots. I took a lot of pictures, standing outside, hanging out the truck window, standing in the sunroof. We also passed a number of other photographers, often set up on tripods in various places on the driving loop.

This is when I realized that I am not a wildlife photographer. First of all, I don’t have the gear for it. I could easily spot the photographers who specialize in wildlife photography by the size of their lenses and how they were camped out with plans to be there for a while. I saw one guy remove a lens from the back of his SUV that was the size of a bazooka gun. I was not envious. I was just as happy taking a picture of a lone dead tree in a mostly empty marsh as I was taking pictures of birds. I also really lack the patience for it. I’m not one for camping out for hours to get the “perfect” shot. I’m not mad about any of the pictures I took, but I am not delusional enough send anything off to National Geographic.

And I am perfectly at ease with this knowledge.

I didn’t plan this excursion solely on photography. I wanted to see a million birds in one place, which we did. Every time Michael stopped the truck and we got out so I could take pictures, the thing that hit me was the sound. The honking and chatter of geese was the only sound to be heard, but there was so much more. You would be standing there, mesmerized by a white sea of geese, all noisy and then suddenly the sound would stop. The honking would be replaced with a ‘whoosh’ as all of the birds would lift up out of the water and take flight. There would be almost an absence of sound as they all flapped their wings. It was if they were pulling the sound up and away with them. They would swirl around in the air for a minute or two before they would all land and settle in, sound returning to honks and chatter. It was a complete sensory experience. We left the wildlife refuge and stopped in St. Joseph for dinner at Cajun restaurant, where went in with low expectation. I mean…St. Joseph is a little too far north for southern cuisine. We were seated at one of the best tables and served fired oysters that were breaded and fried like how my mom would make them at Christmas. They didn’t have an extensive list of daiquiris or Abita beer on the menu, but we were happily surprised by the authenticity of their dishes. We left with happy full bellies and then we were home in time for SNL reruns.

When we finally made it back home, Michael asked me if I had a good time. I responded with ‘yes’, but then flipped the question back on him. He said that he had really had a nice time and then he said “More of this, please.” I wrote something in my book club journal yesterday when I was trying to write down responses to “I’d ask _ for a _.” We were supposed to be asking men we knew for something and like many of the women in my book group, I was struggling to think of the men I know/knew and what I’d want from any of them. I finally gave up and started writing my thoughts.

Michael will do anything I ask him to do. He may not do it without grumbling first or with an open heart, but he will do it. I just have to ask.

I asked to see a million birds in one space and he took me to see a million birds in one space.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

February weather is the most oddball weather of all the other months. There are days that are below freezing followed with days of sunshiny warmth. One day it is raining and the next day it’s snowing. We turn the furnace up and we turn the furnace down. Some days it is all of the weathers at once. This is how February rolls. It is the beginning of months of unsettling.

Fitting right?

This week, I did my first outside loop walk of the year. It was a tad brisk, particularly in the shade, but the sun was glorious. Things are starting to green up and new growth has popped up in the garden beds not just at work, but I’ve noticed them at home too where I planted tulip bulbs. In years past, I always thought of these momentary warm weather days as a trick or a trap. I mean, today’s high is thirty six. Yesterday’s was even lower. The one really warm day of near seventy was also mostly rainy. The sun didn’t appear from behind the clouds until well after noon. The trap is being lured into believing that winter is done with us.

This year, I’m not falling for the trap.

The first year, when Chris and I moved here, it was in February. There were large piles of snow in all of the parking lots but there was nothing on the ground and time outside only required a light jacket. We thought nothing of it, assuming that the weather here was not too different from OKC. The next year, a month after Chris’s passing, I experienced my first real snow storm. I had to buy a snow shovel and I spent one day shoveling my driveway. The next morning, I got up determined to make it to work only to discover that the snowplows had plowed the snow from the streets to form a frozen wall of snow at the end of my driveway. I remember sitting down hard on my front step and crying. I mentally and physically could not handle it and that is when a seed of hate and dread started to take root and sprout. The seed flourished with every snow flake and temperature drop.

Maybe it is because this winter has been fairly mild or maybe it is because I’m just not good with plants, but this year feels different. Oh…I still have hate in my heart for snow days and freezing temperatures. I just feel more tolerable of those conditions and more patient with my wait for steady Spring like temperatures. If anything, I find myself savoring the days that are warm, as sporadic as they are. I know March isn’t going to be much better. I mean, we often see snow in April around here. It has taken me ten years to come around to it, but I think I’m finally getting used to the wonky messed up way this area transitions into Spring.

I am embracing the unsettling.

THE LIFE I WANT

As predicted, the weekend was everything that was needed. There was talking, listening, laughter, tears, more laughter, new games, a drunk trip to Walmart where I purchased a stuffed, fluffy chicken and some food. It was everything we needed and we made promises to do it again next year. On Sunday morning, Deborah made us breakfast and we ate our last meal together. Then we packed up our cars, but before we headed out in opposite directions, we squeezed each other tight. I told Amy that I would come down for her graduation (she’s been working sooooo hard towards a Masters in Library Sciences). I told Deborah that she’s going to get into grad school (she wants to go into speech pathology and taking classes to make that happen). We drove away from each other, still waving and grinning.

Then our weekend together was over.

I decided to take a different way home when I left Wichita. I chose a country highway instead of the turnpike even though it was not the fastest route. I have been using the weather as an excuse for being uninspired and unmotivated in getting out my camera. The weather is part of the problem, but not the whole of the problem. I thought that by taking a slower road, I would be less hesitant to stop when I saw something interesting. The first impulsive stop was for a windmill in a field of wind turbines. The concept of impulsive stops was too new to me and I rushed myself. The second stop took me down a gravel road to an old school house. The school house, while isolated and alone was at least kept mowed so that you could walk around the school. The building, itself was boarded up though. The field it sat in was quite except for the chattering of birds that I could not see. I spent more time here, listening to birds and judging the angel of the light. Eventually, I returned to my car feeling lighter and satisfied with what I had just done.

I made one more stop before I hit Emporia, a place called Cottonwood Falls with wobbly brick streets. I took some pictures of the old courthouse and then spent too long in search of an owl that I kept hearing. I found myself well off of main street before turning back and driving on to Emporia. That feeling of satisfaction stayed with me the rest of the day. I stopped to go through the Burger King drive thru in Emporia. Michael’s put Burger King on the banned list because they always get his order wrong. I had low expectations when I ordered my impossible whopper. The teenager working the window handed over my order and I found a piping hot sandwich that looked exactly like the picture with crisp lettuce and onions. It was the most perfect Impossible Whopper I had ever seen.

It felt like a reward.

The next day over breakfast, I told Michael about how good that drive felt and that I wanted more. He said that he was always willing to stop if I wanted and I winced. There have been a number of times when I have asked to stop and Michael’s response has had a tone of inconvenience to it. It happened enough times, that I have stopped asking. It wasn’t easy, but I told him this and I told him that I was no longer going to allow this to happen. I am going to ask to stop and I will no longer let him make me feel like I am inconveniencing him with my request. It was not an easy conversation to have, mostly because he didn’t realize he’d been speaking in a way that would make me not ask for something I want.

Effectively communicating wants and needs is difficult.

I devised a plan to ease into the asking by scheduling us on an evening trip up to a wildlife preserve just north of St. Joseph. It was surprisingly simple. I sent a link to the preserve along with a date and time I want to be there. It has been reported that the preserve is currently filled up with snow geese and I want to see them, photograph them. I received an immediate response of ‘yes’ and then we made dinner plans in St. Joseph. I find that I am excited and looking forward to doing something other than our usual Saturday evening thing of couch potato soaked in gin and tonic, but I also learned to stop caring about the reaction I might get to an ask. Because I want more of those lighter and satisfied feelings.

I am learning to ask for the life that I want.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I am going out of town this weekend. Not for a solo adventure, but a weekend with two people I ave known and loved for a very very very long time. Late in 2021, I sent out a text to Amy and Deborah requesting a weekend getaway for my birthday. Then we dispersed to consult all of the calendars and star charts to find a weekend we would all be available to “getaway”. The three of us all agreed on a weekend in February of 2022 and gathered at a lake house in the Grand Lake area. It was spectacular. Deborah was going through a really difficult life event (still is, really) and Amy is always burning all of the candles at all of the ends. We spent the weekend lamenting difficult life events and what eventually happens when candles are burned. We laughed and laughed and cried a little. We drank and ate all the foods. By the end of the weekend, we all agreed that this had to be a yearly event for us. This weekend will be the second annual Women Who Have Loved Each Other Since 1995 Weekend Extravaganza.

I might need to shorten that title.

It dawned on me some time last week that our extravaganza weekend is the same weekend we were having Chris’s Celebration of Life service eleven years ago. There is something fitting about all of that. We are not close. We were closer when Chris was with us. We do not text each other every day or even every month. The intention is there for us to be close, but the challenges of navigating just the day to day life crap is hard enough. The lack of the amount of contact we have with each other has not lessened the amount of love I have for these women. I am so proud of us for making a commitment to spend a whole weekend with each other. And Thankful.

Today is one of those rare Thankful Fridays where I allow myself to be thankful that it is Friday. I know that the weekend will be filled with more laughter than tears. Definitely there will be cheese because I am taking leftover birthday cheese. We will eat, drink and be more than merry.

THE VALENTINE COASTER

I put on a tunic shirt that reminds me of an old fashioned valentine doily card and then I took Josephine to the groomers’ for her 7:30 AM drop off. We were the first in line. I handed Josephine off to her wonderful groomer, Wade, and turned around to be greeted by two golden retrievers. I loved on both of them and then squeezed past to get out the door. Right out side the door, I was greeted by an enthusiastic golden doodle who also received some love and baby talk. Then I looked to my left and there was a line of dogs waiting their turn to be dropped off and for a moment I wondered if this was heaven. It was like a scene where the heroine runs down the hallway high-fiving all of her classmates. In this case I was the heroine and the classmates were fluffy puppies. I replaced the high fives with pets.

This is how every day should start.

Then I got in my car just in time to hear the end of a story from a woman from The Midwest Transplant Network about donating her husband’s organs after her husband died. When the story ended, they played one of his favorite songs which happened to be Remember Me from Coco. I pulled into the parking lot at work a sobbing wet mess and once again reminded that I have never been a fan of this holiday. But then I got to go pick Josephine up from the groomers’ and that’s my favorite part of grooming day. First of all Josephine is so excited to see me that she nearly drags the person put to the task of bringing her out to me. It almost feels like I am saving her life. Then there is the added bonus of Josephine looking her absolute cutest right after she’s been bathed and groomed. I just want to squeeze her and smoosh up her little face I LOVE HER SO MUCH!

On the way back to work after taking Josephine home, the radio started playing The Luckiest by Ben Folds which made me a little weepy yet again. In many ways I am the luckiest, for meeting Chris when I did and having our time together. Some people spend their whole lives looking for that thing we had. I’m not the old wife that dies two days after her husband though. I am the luckiest because I entered into my next relationship with a good foundation of what healthy relationships look like. I am the luckiest because I know that I was loved and that I am loved.

No pink doily cards required.

THE LEAST CONTROVERSIAL THING

I have a whole lot of (unpopular) thoughts running around in this noggin’ at the moment in regards to the Super Bowl. I love the enthusiasm this city has for their football team, but I have a hard time summoning up support for the NFL as a corporation, ethically speaking. So instead of ranting on about how the commercialization of sportsball has contributed to the systemic racism prevalent in this country and the perpetuation of glorifying violence, I’ll talk about something less controversial. Red Light Therapy.

Saturday, I posted a picture of myself in the red light therapy chamber at my chiropractor’s. Then, I had a number of people ask me what I thought about the therapy. I will tell you that I went in with the most skeptical, this is bullshit attitude. My chiropractor suggested it after my adjust last week because my arm and shoulder was still causing me problems. I looked at Dr. Fran and I said “Is this voodoo?” To which she replied with a chuckle that it was not voodoo, but then she said the thing that she should not have said to me. She said “it works on the molecular level.” Don’t say these words to someone with a background in molecular genetics. Just don’t. Their eyes will become strained from the severe eye roll they give you. Even though I knew that this was probably total nonsense, I agreed to signing up for six sessions. I felt results after the first session. I didn’t want to admit it, but I felt surprisingly better.

So I did the thing that I do and went back to work to do a deep science dive on Red Light Therapy and it turns out that it is not voodoo. There are a number of peer-reviewed journal articles involved in the use of red or near infra-red light to reduce pain and inflammation, stimulate new tissue growth and the various diseases that could benefit from this treatment. It is believed that the red light is absorbed by cytochrome C oxidase in mitochondria which leads to an increase in ATP production and inducing transcription factors involved in cell proliferation, repair and regeneration. Dr. Fran was not wrong. It works on the molecular level.

I have completed three sessions and I can’t deny that it is helping. I am no longer waking up in the middle of the night with arm/shoulder pain or toss and turn in an effort to get comfortable. I still have some mobility issues where I am not as flexible as I used to be, but I can finally reach behind my back and unhook my bra again. I consider this a win. This doesn’t mean that I do not feel like a ridiculous white walrus while laying naked in the red light therapy chamber. On my second session, I accidentally knocked the head rest out of the chamber while I was flipping over onto my back. I whacked the headrest so hard that it shot out the open end, hit the wall and landed almost completely under the whole chamber. Then I had to army crawl my naked body to the end of the chamber and reach around to fish out the head rest.

It was not my most graceful moment.

I also can’t seem to get Roxanne by the Police out of my head while I’m in there, except I change the lyrics to something about how I have to turn on the red light. Then the song turns from saving the sex worker to letting her just do her job and leaving her alone…Look, you’re in there for fifteen minutes. That’s plenty of rando thought time.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Chris turned fifty three on Monday. I tried desperately to not pay attention or say anything about it, but spent the day continually checking his Facebook memorial page to see if any one had left messages. Then I swallowed my ball of hypocrisies and posted nothing, leaving it with plain old lurking. Today marks eleven years since his passing and it has always felt like an extra layer of cruelty that we celebrated his birthday and said our final goodbyes all in the span of one breath.

Tiffany asked me on Monday what age Chris is to me, like is he the same age as when he died, younger, older? In general, Chris is at various ages in my head. I am surrounded with pictures of him during our life together, along with pictures of a much younger Chris before me. Those images make an impression. Mostly though, Chris ages with each birthday. I imagine him now with a bit more gray in his hair, particularly around the temples. Chris, even though he had Lasik years ago, needs readers now and it has become a big joke about how often he loses them on top of his head. He’s a little thinner because he took up running. He likes to run up to the coffee shop at seventy fifth and Wornall and he spends half his day there typing away on his laptop. There’s a comic book nerd guy that hangs out at the same coffee shop with his computer and he and Chris have become comic book pals. Chris has settled in here, found a group of his kind of people. He’s taken to smoking a pipe, not really because he likes the tobacco, but because it is ridiculous. Sometimes he replaces the tobacco with soapy water. You can imagine.

Chris is still Chris.

This, these anniversaries, it is not any harder today than it was last year or the year before that. That doesn’t mean it is easy. Like a habit, missing him has just become a way of life. It is just like the parts of my body that now ache when the weather turns suddenly from tolerable to freezing. It is a dull pain like all the other pains that come with an aging body, that I just live with. This is how I am now. Like the other day at work when I was hot. I am always cold at work, but the other day I wasn’t and I said out loud that I was hot and I didn’t know if it was because the room was being heated or if this is just how I am now. There is gratitude in accepting the things that I cannot control or change. Because while I cannot change the fact that Chris is gone, I can still imagine a life where he is still with us.

Imagination: the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful.

The number of times I have heard someone say to me “I just can’t imagine…” My reaction was always “why would you even try to imagine?” Now I wonder if imagining a life without Chris would have actually prepared me for the inevitable. I have become more creative and possibly more resourceful, but not delusional. I don’t go home at the end of the day and expect to see him sitting on the couch, Empire Strikes Back playing on the TV while he pokes around on his computer. I no longer keep a chat window open for our daily random chats. Because while I can imagine all of these things, I know it is all just a practice in creativity and Chris was all about practices in creativity.

I am no longer mad at Chris. Releasing the anger has allowed me to see the gifts that he left me with.

IF I WERE A BAD GIRL

There’s an exercise in this book on women empowerment that I am reading that asks you to fill in this sentence “If I were a bad girl, I’d…” It is an exercise designed to expose your desires. What would you do if there were no societal rules or the rules you set for yourself? I haven’t gotten any farther with this exercise than just giving it a tiny bit of thought. It is a little bit of an overwhelming question because of the infinite possibilities, but in a moment of stillness, I pondered this question and the first thought that came into my head was that I would quit my job and become a real photographer. I’d buy a camper van and drive out to the dessert to photograph all the different shacks and dwellings that break up the desolation. I wouldn’t worry about money because I’d conn some billionaire into funding my adventures.

The way the thought just put itself right there in that spot of my brain between my eyes was like having a cold cup of water splashed into my face. I mean, just two hours earlier, I’d had a wave of self doubt about my showing hit me so hard, I felt like I was drowning in it. But the pure selfishness of the thought itself felt like eating chocolate cake. I get that this is the point of the exercise. It’s not supposed to be about anyone else but yourself. It is your opportunity to be completely and utterly selfish. I also think it is supposed to flip your idea of ‘selfish’.

self-ish: (of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

So many of us women were raised with the belief of selfishness as a sin. We are taught to be selfless in all aspects of our lives. Your wants and desires come second to those around you, if they come at all. This, to me, makes those around us who subconsciously take advantage of our selfless acts the truly selfish ones. My bad girl request isn’t even all that “bad”, except the part about stealing. It does draw a pretty obvious map to some desires. This is the time of year when I come down with a case of wanderlust and want to be anywhere but here. I’ve talked about solo adventuring before but lack the amount of bravery required for me to (without guilt) load up and head out. It’s like I’m waiting for an invitation or permission.

Friday evening, Micheal, Phoenix and I travelled downtown to check out the art reception for the artist that is currently in the space where I will be hanging my photos in May. I also needed to measure the wall space. The reception was in the lobby of the hotel the Starbucks is attached to, so we walked in through the hotel. I froze immediately stepping through the doors because I was currently drowning in a new wave of self doubt. The current artist had tables and lots of merchandise. Handbag, backpacks, coin purses, watch faces. Anything he could print is art onto, he had it for sale. Michael took one look at my face and steered me directly into the Starbucks to measure the walls. I loudly in a panicked whisper said “I do not have merch!” Michael assured me that I did not need merch. We measured the walls and then I took a breath. I headed out into the lobby to introduce myself to the manager in charge of the art and the current artist. I asked questions. I socialized. I drank a terrible but strong margarita and we left.

I spent too much wasted time on thinking about possible merchandise options before deciding that I do not need merchandise. I’ll have postcards and prints. Michael made me templates of the walls with proportionally sized rectangles of my prints. I started placing rectangles and making lists. I curated the photos I want for the space and afterwards I thought “I am a real photographer.” Everyone else around me seems to know this better than I do. So my Bad Girl request, my opportunity for selfishness, is a request to do more to curate myself. Even my default Good Girl status can see that this is not a very Bad Girl request.

I guess, the thing I learned from this exercise is that I’m bad at being bad.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve been having some left arm pain for over a month. It started with my shoulder, but after an adjustment the shoulder pain went away and moved into my upper arm. Before everyone starts yelling at me, it is not a heart attack. It’s my neck. Wonkiness in my neck is causing nerve pain in my arm. One of the ways my chiropractor is treating this issue is by making me wear a shoulder brace for hours at a time. The brace pulls my shoulders back, relieving some strain on my neck which has been working at keeping those shoulders up near my ears. When she first put it on, I though “Wow! This is great!” but after ten minutes of it, I felt like screaming. The thing about pulling the shoulders back, is that it also opens the chest.

Heart opening poses are great for physically stretching the front of the body. Mentally and emotionally though, it can be terrifying. Heart openers can make a person feel vulnerable. Lifting and stretching open the chest can release some emotions, emotions that have trapped inside a body for days or years. While releasing all of that pent up crud is good, it is also scary. Heart openers are an invitation to courage. You have to be courageous enough to be vulnerable. I’ve basically been walking around in a heart opening position all week.

The first day of my forced vulnerability made me want to shove all of the things away from me. I wanted to yell at people to tell them not to stand in front of me and not to look at me. The second day, I cried a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about episode three of The Last of Us and if you haven’t seen it then you are missing out on the most beautiful love story in television history. The third day, I stood at my desk all morning, occasionally dancing. I didn’t sit down until I went to teach my chair yoga class at noon. After that, all I wanted to do was lay down under my desk and sleep.

Does anyone remember the Care Bears’ cartoon? They would rub their bellies until light a beam of light would irradiate out from their centers. I think Teletubbies do this too. This was the Care Bears super power for thwarting evil enemies and healing those corrupted by that evil influence. That’s what today feels like. I feel like I’m emitting a beam of light from my chest and I have the power to thwart evil and heal all emotional distress. I am no longer fighting the vulnerability or crying uncontrollably at my desk. That’s something to be grateful for, for sure, but also…super powers.

I’m grateful for my new super powers.

ONE FOOT IN, ONE FOOT OUT

It was one of those rare Saturday mornings where Michael was up at the same time as me. So I talked him into breakfast at You Say Tomato before heading downtown to the Asian food market. We had not been to You Say Tomato since well before the pandemic. They closed for a while and went to a meal service business model. Now they’re open on Fridays and Saturdays for breakfast and lunch. This place has always been one of my favorites. It was an early find and Chris and I would go there almost every weekend. We fell for the eclectic and cozy feel of the place because it reminded us of Portland. This was one of the ways we justified our move to Kansas City instead of the Pacific North West. We explored the city and hunted up all the little Portland like pockets. There are , surprisingly, quite a few.

Chris and I would be celebrating our twenty fifth wedding anniversary in March. When Randy and Katrina had their twenty fifth, we all went to Vegas and watched as an Elvis impersonator officiated their vow renewal. It was a great trip. I wonder if Chris and I would be doing something like that, though I don’t see us as the vow renewing type. I bet we would trade Vegas for some place like Costa Rica or Paris. Twenty five years…that seems so strange. I think about that while two different members of our framily are currently having their marriages crumble tragically down around them. Is this another thing that would be happening if Chris were still around? Would Chris and I still be the example we were to others back before it all ended? An example I strive for now in my current relationship.

This is a contract renewal year for Michael and I. We will have been together for ten years in June. Early in our relationship, he said something to me about if we lasted as many years as Chris and I did, he might ask me to stop wearing Chris’s wedding ring around my neck. I wonder if he remembers asking me that or my non-committal response to his request. It is very possible that this relationship might last longer than my last one. The effort I make in my desperate attempt at being in this layer of time is visible and puts me in the not quite the ideal category for a partner. That might be the thing that ends us. He might just get tired of settling for what I really am and not what he wishes I was.

One day he’ll get fed up with the number of times I might mention Chris’s name.

On this particular Saturday, Michael and I sat at opposite ends of a table. He gave me space to write in my Fortune Cookie journal while we waited for our food, then moved closer to share the pecan roll I had ordered on impulse. I was two bites into my egg croissant when I realized Fields of Gold was playing in the background. I paused and drifted back. When that song ended, the next in the line up of Ten Summoner’s Tales started playing. The restaurant was playing the album that played on loop in Chris’s dorm room while we were having sex. I know that playlist by heart. When Michael and I were done with breakfast, he asked “You ready to go?” and I replied “Yes. I’d like to leave Chris’s dorm room now.”

And we left.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I moved to a different cubicle this week. The new space is closest to the microscopy room, which makes me the first person someone sees when they open the door, looking for help. That’s one of the reasons for moving me here. I am the fixer and the helper and the make things better person. The new space is bigger than my old space and includes a large window. At first, when I moved all of my personal things over, I kept my self compacted as if I was still in the old space. It took me a day or two to spread out. It’s taken me all week to remember to stop walking over to the old space to set my things down. At first, when I was told I was being given this new space, I was really excited about the window, but then I got here and it has been cloudy and gloomy. The new cubicle also feels a bit isolating, like I am further away from my coworkers. It’s almost lonely over here.

Things and feelings changed on Thursday morning. The clouds had lifted and morning sunlight streamed into my cubicle. I stood at my desk, checking my calendar schedule and catching up on emails, and bathed in that morning sunlight. Then feelings flooded into my body and I had to really think about what those feelings were and when the last time it was that felt them. I felt joy and energy and was like “Oh my Gods! This day is spectacular!” The sunlight situation only lasted a few hours and then a new layer of cloud cover rolled in, but in those few hours I was reminded that we are very much like plants. Water and sunlight are essential to life. It is not as if I was previously working in dungeon. Our office space, in general, is open with tall windows on one side. My old cubicle put me in indirect lighting. I did not realize that I was a direct sunlight plant until I moved to the new cubicle.

No wonder winters are so difficult for me.

I am thankful for a lot of things this week. The whole office has spent the week snacking on cheese, thanks to the most epic birthday (cheese) cake Michael made me last weekend. The joy of his accomplishment in building this beautiful tower of cheese was almost better than eating the cheese, and the joy of sharing some that cheese with friends has been priceless. I started teaching a six week beginning yoga session on Monday and it feels real good to teach people how to make yoga accessible for their own bodies. I declined on an event with my self-care people because it is later this evening and there is nothing more I want to do on a Friday evening than be a potato because by the end of Fridays, my brain feels like mashed ones. That’s self-care in action. I allowed myself to be talked into a mustache waxing last Saturday and my upper lip is just now starting to look normal again. So I’m thank for that.

Most of all though, I am grateful for getting some direct sunlight.

A NEW EDITION OF TTITIN

This addition of Things The Internet Thinks I Need starts with a list:

• mushroom growing kits (that’s probably true)

• swimsuits ( I rarely wear the one I own)

• expensive ethically sourced seafood shipped right to my door (I mean, yeah, but who do you think I am? Scrooge McDuck?)

• camper vans (my fault because I keep looking at camper vans)

• wedding planning (record scratch….whut?)

Yeah, so all of those things except one could possibly be of use. Oh…I forgot psychedelic mushroom counseling. Even that is of possible use to me, but wedding planning? Really, Internet? I don’t even know what magic code of words I have entered in any kind of search bar to merit a targeted ad about planning my wedding. They want to sell me the best gift for a bridesmaid and the best destination weddings and tips on floral arrangements. These are all things I didn’t do the first time around and if Michael ever convinces me to get married again, those are things I will not do the second time around.

I like to think that all this means is that the robots don’t remotely have a clue as to who I am and when the Robot Apocalypse happens, they won’t be ready for someone like me.

Pow! Pow!

That’s really all I have to say right now. I’m too busy at work to think about anything other than work while I am at work (and sometimes not). When I’m home, I spend an hour watching TV and the rest of the time reading. Right now, I’m reading Unbound: A Woman’s Guide to Power by Kasia Urbaniak. It’s a book recommended by my friend Erica. She and our friend Abi are going to have book club like meetings to discuss it. I’m on page fifty something and will continue to read even though I’m so wound up in a Good Girl Double Bind that I probably cannot be unbound. After this book, I plan on finishing Project Hail Mary before starting on What Fresh Hell is This?

I have compiled a folder of show prints and made a list of sizes.

I’m eating lots of cheese.

You’d think the Internet would have noticed and mentioned something about the amount of cheese I’ve been eating.

It has not.