When this song started playing at the start of this week's The Walking Dead episode, it brought all the emotions.  So much more than Carl's death could. Last week three of my dad's high school friends passed away.  Sometimes stories stay buried when they're not shared.  An end like this one can bring those up.  I learned a lot about my dad from asking questions I never considered were relevant to him.  From differentiating my father from the person he was before me.

There's just so much death everywhere though.  Never stopping, just as new life keeps coming.  So I'm turning back to my garden.  I planted the first seeds in my self watering seed starter.  I am still trying to find those little packets to share my seeds back to the library.  And for better storage.  I have so many pepper and basil seeds. This year I think it's time for a new way to share them.

Labels: gardening

Last night was a clusterfuck. I spent the whole day taking care of my to do list so that I could enjoy the night and have a lazy Sunday of reading and preparing my garden.  I was in such a good mood.  What a laugh.

I got stuck following an ambulance on the highway until we hit the stop dead traffic from the accident it was seeking.  Then I got turned around on the road, three to five times.  There gets to be a point where you just have to stop listening to the gps and pay attention to the streets.  After verifying I was not where I needed to be, I used my gps to walk to my destination and it took me the worst way possible. As was apparent on my super easy walk back.  But I was so paranoid last night.  Well, not paranoid, anxious. 

Anxiety, you old awful friend.  I texted a friend to help me calm down.  I looked up the way I needed to head back.  I asked around for a walking buddy.  Okay, I took the coward's way out on this one.  The venue was filled, almost everyone else was drinking, and it felt way too easy to eavesdrop and I never found a group of people or single person I felt comfortable enough asking to walk with me to my car.  So I just stalled until enough people were heading in the direction of my car. Anyway, I did the best I could to get control of the situation.  But having to make preparations, having to stress about my safety, it just ruined my mood.  The band was great, the openers were fun too, and I wanted to dance, but it wasn't the same.  I felt too alone in the crowd.  I need a concert buddy from now on.  For safety and fun and for fucks sake because I don't need to be alone.

Well last night bled into a headache, or the storm did, or my pets waking me up constantly for 90 minutes straight did, who can be sure.  I started to build my seed starter system this morning and my heart was not in it.  I did read, ate waffles, played with the dogs.  The waffles made me nauseous though.  Waffles shouldn't make you feel barfy, they should make everything better.  So something else must be up with me. 

The only music that feels fitting for this kind of dreary Sunday is Cults on shuffle.  The lyrics to this song were stuck in my head before it even came on.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?  You can listen to one song by a band and instantly want to hear another to the point that you're playing over the lyrics in your head already.  "Should've taken the high road.  Now it's such a long way back."  It happens a lot for me with different Cults songs. 

Labels: anxiety, Cults, dreary day

On my quest to read more, grow more, I have come across several articles on the next to read books coming out in 2018.  One that I am looking forward to is Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles.  I found out about it and marked MUST READ on January 5th, but realized later in the month that it wouldn't come out until March.

Well that has not stopped me from stalking my library system's website for news on this book.  And I am so glad it didn't.  Tonight I found the book listed as ON ORDER!!!!!!! So I placed a hold for it, expecting to see that I was the 17th-25th person reserving it and I would get a chance to read it by the summer.  But, ALAS, my position in the queue is NUMBER ONE!!!!! I am going to be the first library patron to read this book!  I've never been a first like this before.  I've looked up the book details on a few books to see how many check-outs it's had when it feels too new to be read even once (8 or 11 check-outs, but I don't think they even cracked the spine, who are these so called readers??!?).

It won't be easy reading this book, but it's premise is too common in our country.  I've struggled over  the shootings and killings of young black men in our country.  It seems like it shouldn't keep happening, that there should be a system in place to prevent it, and yet people are still dying.  Young people.  Old people. Innocent people.  This book stands out for many reasons and so does it's author.  Jay is only 22.  I am obviously jealous of this accomplishment, but also really excited to see someone so young excel in literature.  It's such an inspiration.

Speaking of inspiration, I just finished Practical Magic.  I loved the movie and struggled therefore with the book since it went in a few different directions. Also I hate when books don't have real chapters, but have 100+ page "sections."  One thing I loved though were all the passages at the beginning of the sections.  Here is my favorite from the end:

Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder.  Keep rosemary by your garden gate.  Add pepper to your mashed potatoes.  Plant roses and lavender, for luck.  Fall in love whenever you can. (Hoffman 1995)

Labels: inspiration, Jay Coles, library books, new books, read more, reading list, Tyler Johnson Was Here

I didn't think today would be nice enough for a walk around the pond, but the sunshine surprised me. I brought my headphones this time and power walked past people listening to The Strokes. I brought my second brace and it was no nice to take off the sweaty one, air dry, rinse and not feel sweaty & gross after.

Labels: find the good

Did you notice the daffodils bloomed last week? Daffodil's remind me of UGA's North campus and  of a Latin professor I once had.  He would bring freshly picked daffodils from his garden to class and he would have us pass it around and smell it.  He was an interesting fellow.  I think he was in is 70's or 80's when he taught me.  He had a pure joy for life, for Latin, for daffodils, for the harpsichord.

I want more pure joy in my life.  I found myself thinking about this song this afternoon after work, so I drove home singing to it.  My throat felt raw after singing alone the first time, but it's so beautiful, so I put it on repeat until my voice was nearly gone.  There's just so much emotion in this song, so much passion.  I think it would be a really pretty duet.  And that way you could have enough time to catch your breath before you're giving your all to the next verse.  I mean, how can you not give your all to the line, "when you take me in your arms and drive me slowly out of my mind."  I may not be a good singer, but I love singing this song.  The way your voice runs over the notes.  That's not the right term for it, it's been a while since I was in a chorus, so I don't know the right terminology.  All I can really say is it feels like pure joy.

Labels: find the good, Hold Me, Kiss Me by Mel Carter, music appreciation, pure joy, Thrill Me

My Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify this week is a rush of nostalgia.

Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel

At The Bottom of Everything - Bright Eyes
Kissing the Lipless - The Shins
That Time - Regina Spektor
Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
Oh Lately It's So Quiet - OK Go
Anti-Anti - Snowden
We've Been Had - The Walkmen
Nights of the Living Dead - Tilly and the Wall

And then, most shockingly, a new song by Allison Weiss. Have they been stalking me? I don't know if they're trying so much to introduce me to new music or turn me back to myself.  The college version. Oh that age.  There are so many things I wish I could tell myself then. Your anxiety isn't something to be ashamed of.  Be honest, ask for help. MOISTURIZER - use it daily!  Eat less candy, you won't die. Don't stop reading for pleasure.  Take it slow girl.

Labels: advice, longing, nostalgia, spotify

I downloaded a few gardening apps last summer but it was too late in the year for them to really be useful to me. At the beginning of the year, they are the modern almanac! Well kinda. Biggest questions I have is when can I start inside and what needs to start outside first and when? Well this really depends on when the last freeze is predicted to be. I'm guessing that's not as easy to determine before Groundhog's Day, but today was the perfect day to check!

The last spring freeze will be 4/15/18.

For most seeds that you start inside they recommend starting 8-6 weeks in advance. And today is 8 weeks before the last freeze!!! I can start my tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cabbage! In two weeks I can add the basil & lavender to my indoor greenhouse!

My biggest obstacle is Fitz. He likes to eat the tops off my plants. I think I'll have to request to set up my table upstairs this spring. This looks like another year where I'm going to move with a couple dozen plants. I am so excited to build raised garden beds next year though.

Gardening has really brought me back to myself. I had become such an indoor creature, depressive, addicted to screens, thinking that heat and sweat were enemies. Keeping my garden alive changed that. I am so ready to be back in my garden, reading another enchanting book, throwing the ball for Tess, sunbathing with her when we need to take a break from playing. Spritzing my spray bottle on leaves and veggies and Tess and myself. Floating in the peaceful little pool afterward when all the kids have gone back home. (Only real joy of living in a neighborhood under construction is the limited number of kids at the pool. And since it's still not really safe to let your kids play in the streets with all these strangers in the neighborhood, they also can't go to the pool by themselves yet!)

Yesterday Tess and I walked the neighborhood trying to get back in shape. Sweating in my brace was awful gross. I don't want to get dirt all over it so I really need to find a gardening partner for the beginning of spring. I am sort of talented at making dirt bloom up in the air, getting in my hair, behind my ears, down the front of my shirt. Really need to avoid that with this "air dry only" brace.

But really, can it please be spring already?

Labels: gardening, pure joy, stay in the light

The weather was nice for a short time today so I went for a walk around the duck pond at work today.  There were no ducks, but the turtles have been populating.  I saw at least 30 turtles sunbathing peacefully, except for two who were in the mud among trash.  There were so many bottles and pieces of trash strewn on the water's edge, in the surrounding bushes, and even up in the grass past the sidewalk.  It's so disgusting, I don't know how people can just throw their trash on the ground and not walk the extra ten steps to a trash can.  What's worse is that this place is home to so  much wildlife, and these idiots have put those animals in danger.

My family is too lazy to trek to our old suburb on the weekend, and my hometown friends don't live out there anymore, but I am going to start asking around for someone to help me with a clean-up project.  One, because it will look a lot weirder if it's just me out there in my rain boots, kitchen gloves, and a trash bag.  Second, I want to sort it into recyclables and garbage and I don't want to get stuck carrying both garbage bags.

When I see stuff like that, garbage on the side of the road, bottles overflowing trash cans with no recycling bins in sight, it just doesn't make sense.  It is so easy to fix those situations.  Sometimes I get compulsive about it, mostly recycling, because I can do it at home.  I have access to recycling bins in so many places.  So I don't see why it's so hard to hold on to a recyclable item until you get to a recycling bin.   I wish more people thought this way.  I even bought a book about recycling for my niece when she gets older.  Books are the best.

Labels: be the good, recycling

When I talk about my hair, it tends to only be about the color.  Maybe the length.  Never really the texture.

As a little girl I had straight, long, almost fire orange hair.  (Let's be honest, a fire is orange or blue, never red.)  I wore a lot of braids.  Otherwise I had a lot of tangles.

In middle school I cut it shorter, grew it longer, slept in braids, tried to keep an ounce of wave in my straight as a stick hair.

In high school I started donating it.  Grow it long enough to share.  Give an inch or two for uneasy scissors.  Oh it was so awful.  I had no idea how to style it.  No idea that straighteners could be used on already straight hair to bring down some of the volume  (frizz).  It did something strange somewhere in those four years.  It got cork screw curly, for two inches, then grew out straight.

My hair wouldn't hold man-made curls, but it zigged and it zagged and it spiraled and then the actual weight of it forced it to fall flat or well, straight.

In college I alternated long shoulder length to middle of the back.  I went for all the layers.  I left long straight strands everywhere I went, little reminders.  In it's place would grow a thicker, redder, coarser, curl. 

Now at the end of my twenties I find two inch sections of curl pattern at the end of eight inches of straight hair.  In the summer and late into the fall I work in the garden and come in to find amid that sweet layer of sweat, curls shaping my face.  The start of ringlets, though fairly brief.  It's the humidity, it has to be.

But now I see them, camouflaged and outnumbered by straight hairs, a few survivors, pure coarse curl with vibrant color.  At work I pulled a hair off of my sweater, a perfect ringlet, the circumference almost an inch wide.  I have real curls?  But I have straight hair.

I've heard women talking about the ways their hair changed as they aged.  I never imagined this.  I've heard of curl patterns changing, but those women had curls to begin with.

Oh, this song is going to get stuck in my head.

Labels: perfect hair, Red hair with a curl, redheads, White Stripes

Labels: Camera Obscura, happy valentine's day, songs stuck in my head

What did I do with my degree today? Become a resource for book clubs. Well it feels like it. I just recommended the second book in a row for my neighborhood book club, and I'm not even a part of it.

Meanwhile I was the only person present who wanted them to go away so that I could read my own books. It was a long day at work. I just wanted to be home, free, and read.

Labels: book recommendations

My head was a cloud all day.  My ears were a little poppy too.  I think it's just the shifting weather fronts, but I drank as much vitamin c as I could get my hands on to play it safe.

When my head started to feel better I heard this song in my head.  I've been singing along to it a lot lately.  It get stuck in my head and so I play it when I go to bed and when I wake up.  The intro is just magical.  A little mythical.

The definition of harrowing is "acutely distressing; to cause distress to." I have never connected that word with distress though (I clearly did not face it on the SATs). Maybe because it sounds like hero.  I always imagined it as a word similar to bravery.  Apparently not.

I've been listening to a lot of Elephant Shell listening to this song.  I don't remember the exact parameters around my decision that Tokyo Police Club should be my boyfriend, and I can't really say why, but I stick by it.  Their music makes me feel happy, upbeat, open to love, open to dancing.  Champ came out and I was hesitant, but it won me over. If I could I would hug and squeeze each one of them and thank them for creating such great music.

Labels: migraines, songs stuck in my head, Tokyo Police Club

I watched this week's This Is Us episode and cried my eyes out as advertised. 

Meanwhile I tried to find pictures from my niece's birthday to share with the family and wow.  My first mistake was letting my dad take the pictures.  Half of them are blurry and my chest is level with my sister's face in the other half.  A woman might have recommended someone putting shoes on or having someone lean over or telling someone to rotate their boobs out of the center of the frame.  I mean, I'm not even the pregnant one! Damnnnnnnnn.

Little bit had a good time.  There were no other kids there, so it was mostly all eyes on her.  Oh sweet, sweet girl, that is the last time for that.  From now on she'll have a little brother tagging along to all her parties, playing with all her toys, stealing half of her auntie's kisses, trying to sneak the last cookie without her noticing.

Life goes by so fast.  The bad parts seem to take forever, and the times to savor seem to go by too fast.  It seems like once you hit a certain age there is a pull to look back at your youth.  Reflect on the good and the bad and what you regret the most.  I'm trying with all my might to just be present.  To enjoy and to love and to spread joy.

Labels: aunt life, be present, family

I am having a bad case of anxiety tonight.  I feel like Sunday is already ruined because Sunday will just be a count down to when I have to go to work.  I have one particularity stressful meeting this spring with so many moving parts and I can't seem to leave that stress at work.  Or handle it without feeling stressed.  I need a better method for this kind of anxiety.  I have an appointment scheduled for next week to help with this.

I think I'm just mentally exhausted from all that I'm trying to get done outside of work.  I'm getting into something new, something scary, and I want to make sure I do it right.  I don't even want to talk to people or write about it until I've done more research and homework.

I just want my heart to slow back down.  It feels like my heart is just going to jump right out of my chest.

Labels: anxiety

Today marks 66 days of using my bone growth stimulator. Two more weeks before I can see the progress on my x-rays again. Not something I will frame & put on the wall, but I do keep my x-ray copies in sheet protectors. The PA has even started printing a copy of my newest x-ray next to a copy of my last x-ray for comparison. I'm so glad my doctor is at the Johns Creek location more. Lawrenceville was never convenient, but this office is literally on my way to work. And the staff is great.

I was listening to this song on my drive home & conducting/playing/dancing along. I tried the drum part with both my hands for like 3 beats and then caught myself. Or the pain caught me. So no crazy dramatics yet. The drummer from Kings of Leon had surgery on his wrist the day before or after I did. This was his second wrist surgery too. I can't imagine what it's like to not be able to do what you love for so long. I also wonder what kind of bone growth stimulator he uses, what his x-rays look like, see how better the service is when you have a lot of money (and are pretty famous). Like did he ask other rock stars for their preferred surgeon? Is there one guy (or girl) out there making a living repairing famous drummers? Could be.

Anyway, I vaguely pursued this line of questioning on social media and got no response. If anyone ever finds out, drop me a line!

Labels: broken bones, recovering

This year I decided to keep my reading challenge at 50 books a year, which is "about" four books a month.  In January I read 5 books, and half of 2 books.  I thought for sure I would have finished Between the World and Me, but reading five pages takes an hour.  Anyone who can read this book in a day has no soul.

I was reading this section about poetry and the truth within it and I started reflecting on my own truths. I want to stay in the light.  I want to do good, or do better.  I don't have faith in my writing like I did when I was younger.  I don't really know how it could help others.  I can't stop thinking about my garden though, and composting, and bee keeping, and recycling even more.  It can be so easy to make something good in the world. I'm doing research for VSGreen to find a community garden that we can grow in and de-stress.  We had been looking at neighborhoods for convenience to where people live, but I think the office could really benefit from having it close to work.

This song, Your Loves Whore by Wolf Alice, came on while I was researching and it was kismet. Sure it's about a relationship and growing old,  but it made me think of doing what you love and choosing to be happy or choosing to do what makes you happy and focusing on the good.  You know, staying in the light.  If I keep building this life I love, then the light inside me won't fade.  My intense love for all the little things in my life can keep the light in my life.

Labels: books, gardening, reading challenge, stay in the light