Polygamist Elk

WC and I went up to Estes Park this weekend for a little 24 hour getaway. It's been a rough month/summer with work and I wanted a quiet little reminder of what nature feels like.

When I brought it up to WC, I said "I want to go to Estes Park and snuggle and sit in a hot tub. I mean, aren't the elk fighting right now? Let's go see dude elk fight over lady elk. Plus, we can find a hotel with a hot tub."

He was in.

Thoughts

Sometimes if the mail in my mailbox is disappointing, I just put it back in and give it another day or two to be better. Shouldn't we all have that opportunity to improve? 

My sister and I were talking the other day about learning to enjoy the middle of a transition. Instead of focusing on where we're going, learning to truly enjoy where we are. I'm not very good at this, but I want to be.

If the shirt I want to wear is wrinkled, I use my flat iron to iron it. It's a little dangerous because I'm often still wearing the shirt, but I've had less issues with this method than the actual iron which I'm pretty sure is colluding with the cheese drawer to murder me. 

The Meeting: A Scene

6:30 - Pour bourbon and soda into a glass. Taste. Adjust mix. Taste. Contemplate not going to meeting.

6:33 - Put pants on. Taste drink again. Adjust mix.

6:35 - Consider not wearing a bra because wearing a bra is for people at work and you're at home and home means no bra.

6:40 - Pour a little more bourbon into mug. Maybe a little more soda. Maybe a little more bourbon.

6:43 - Put a bra on.

Et tu, Gruyere?

I took this photo in 2014. I have an
identical cut right now. 

I have a friend whose husband doesn't understand why she has little cuts all over her hands all the time. It wasn't until she was telling me about this marital debate that I realized that it isn't normal to repeatedly ram your knuckles into the edge of the cabinet when reaching for a bowl. Or shave off knuckle skin each time one takes laundry from the washer.

Why, after 38 years, do I still not know where my knuckles are? They haven't moved. They're right there where they've always been.

A little wrinklier.

A little vein-ier... but not in some foreign location.

One time I cut my finger on the cheese drawer in my refrigerator. Of all the kitchen appliances to betray me. The fucking cheese drawer? I can see the dishwasher having it out for me. I don't rinse my dishes. I don't load it properly. I almost never clean that filter thingy. But the cheese drawer I treat with reverence.

Who will we become?

Grief is a new thing for me.

I've spent a little time with it here and there at the end of relationships. At the end of friendships. At the end of eras. But not the big losses. The life-changing,  reevaluate-what's-important kind. Or maybe grief, like childbirth (which I've never done at all so why on earth am I using it as a metaphor?), is something you do eventually forget enough of that the next time it's startlingly dramatic?

I saw my therapist for the first time in 18 months because I'm not managing my reactions to life well right now. I yelled at WC when he said I checked the placement of his toe wrong (he was trying on new shoes and he wanted me to check toe placement and apparently this isn't a skill I have). I also yelled at one of my employees for helping. She was. Just not precisely, exactly, 100% the way I would have done it had I done it myself which I couldn't which is why she was helping. I mostly hate everything that isn't perfectly behaving exactly as I need it to.

This is not a healthy way to approach the world.