skepticlysm

Tag: family

  • Somewhere Outside of …

    Somewhere Outside of …

    • And here we go.
    • Been to the doc twice today.
    • Seriously.
    • Every day this week.
    • Wtaf.
    • I’m ready to be done.
    • Then head to the gym.
    • Well, not that fast.
    • I need to set up the bike trainer again.
    • And get my home resistance workout ready to go.
    • Because I’m so out of shape, if I went straight to weights I would not be able to move for five days.
    • Starting from scratch.
    • Couch to … something.
    • It is definitely a project akin to restoring a classic car.
    • Not that I’m a classic.
    • Hubris.
    • But about the same age.
    • Always boggles my mind I was only a handful of years older than my first car, which was considered a “classic muscle car” by the time I got it at 17.
    • Regretful Life Decision #667: Selling the Camaro instead of just park-and-tarping it.
    • Sigh.
    • Live now, not then, not when.
    • But seriously, looking forward to that good muscle soreness.
    • You know what I’m talking about.
    • If I tried to kung fu right now, I’d throw my back out and need to borrow one of my mom’s walkers.
    • This just happened: Apparently I did the “Gangnam Style” dance for the kid when she was little, trying to get her to laugh.
    • That’s what my sister says, anyway.
    • I have no recollection of that, and I sure as hell don’t need to see that.
    • I can’t dance, man.
    • Not a bit.
    • Like Steph won’t even let me try.
    • Too self-conscious.
    • Which is funny, because … Life truth: unless you’re supermodel hot, or Elaine, or a professional dancer, no one’s watching you dance.
    • That’s a life lesson, really.
    • No one’s paying attention 99 percent of the time.
    • Fly your freak flag high.
    • (Borrowed that.)
    • What is the magic formula to live life honestly, to literally give no F’s about what anyone thinks of you?
    • That’s what authenticity is.
    • Not craving attention.
    • Not the shit the Cheeto-in-Chief does.
    • Went to Walgreen’s to get my industrial-strength Benedryl, and on my way to the pharmacy, I grabbed a Snickers for the kid (on the wife’s text rec, though I know better than to go to Walgreen’s and not return without chocolate).
    • (Have a little faith.)
    • After I waited out the older dude in front of me, I stepped up to the counter.
    • The Walgreenarian said, “What can I help you with today?”
    • “I have a pick-up.”
    • She nodded. “Last name.”
    • I gave it.
    • She nodded. “We have two for you.”
    • She retrieved them from the C bucket, then came back.
    • I’d tossed the Snickers on the counter.
    • She glanced down. “Oh, you got me a Snickers!”
    • “Do you need one? I’ll go back and get you one.”
    • …
    • “Seriously.”
    • She smiled really big the whole rest of the time.
    • I would’ve done it, too.
    • If not for those damn kids.
    • For real though.
    • You could make someone’s day giving them a candy bar.
    • Or at least make their 15 minutes before someone else shits on it.
    • The kid is battling with “boredom” today.
    • Show, don’t tell.
    • She tossed a pen at me.
    • I threw it back.
    • She threw it again.
    • I said, “I’m writing.”
    • Pouty bottom lip came out.
    • “What do you want?”
    • “I want to go somewhere!”
    • “Where?”
    • “I don’t know.”
    • “I’m not sitting in five o’clock traffic with no destination.”
    • More pouty lip.
    • C’mon, kid.
    • I got like 300 words to go.
    • Parental guilt.
    • If only I were a bad parent …
    • Or had more than one kid.
    • But seriously, I’m in a house with four women, a girl dog, and two girl cats.
    • It’s just me and Snacks.
    • On my left, the bored kid.
    • On my right, Liho the cat, who knows it’s the five o’clock hour and is demanding her evening food tribute.
    • She’s “my” cat.
    • Has resting bitch face.
    • Always scowling.
    • Always demanding.
    • When I’m in the kitchen, she winds around my feet making the “You’re going to pick me up” sound.
    • I’ve covered that before.
    • The cat makes different sounds for different demands.
    • The pick-up thing happens in the morning, at dinner, or pretty much any time I’m trying to, you know, DO something.
    • Her needs come before making coffee or dinner, and if you don’t hit the time limit, she’ll slash or bite you in punishment.
    • The hell, man.
    • “The Chosen One” label always comes with deeds to endure.
    • Taking out the trash the other night, I saw bats fluttering their way across the sky.
    • Made me think of HST.
    • Bats always make me think of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
    • Obviously.
    • Flirted a bit with “What We Do in the Shadows.”
    • “Bat!”
    • Still makes me laugh when I think about that.
    • But HST owns the bat association.
    • He could take Dracula in a straight-up fight.
    • No contest.
    • I’d order that emotional support HST, but it looks like it’s a China product, and I’m getting tired of things taking a month to get here when I order them.
    • Still waiting on one of Steph’s birthday presents.
    • Ordered it on the 6th.
    • You would think ten days is adequate time.
    • Apparently not.
    • Curses!
    • (Shakes fist at the sky.)
    • I don’t shake my fist at the sky.
    • Ever.
    • I just clench them at my sides and tremble with suppressed rage.
    • RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT!
    • (Unless it’s summer, then eagerly await the setting of the sun because F this heat.)
    • See you tomorrow.
  • June 24

    June 24

    • This getting old shit sucks.
    • I understand my generation’s parents are getting to the age where they get replacement parts and augmentations.
    • Possibly courting mortality.
    • Oof.
    • Mom had a hip replacement Monday, so we’ve been busy.
    • Yes, she’s up and moving already.
    • With a walker, but still.
    • It is what I expected.
    • She gave me the fount that is my stubbornness.
    • Obviously.
    • Like me, she’ll probably expect to be better before she actually is.
    • She’s bunking with us for a couple of weeks.
    • In no small part because she has eight or nine Great Pyrenees, and she would have pretty good odds of getting bowled over.
    • (Falling when you’ve just had a hip replacement is not physician-recommended.)
    • Dog Rescuer.
    • So was my sister at one time.
    • Stubbornness and caretaking run in the family.
    • My uncle showed up for the surgery on Monday, and we ended up talking to him at the hospital Starbucks for the couple of hours Mom was in the OR.
    • Good talk.
    • He’s a doctor, so again, the caretaking thing seems to run in the genes on that side of the family.
    • I bailed on pre-med, one of those decisions I regret, so that had been my path at one time, too.
    • (Given what my uncle said yesterday, I should’ve been a radiologist.)
    • I’d planned on being a shrink.
    • Sometimes, I still think about being a therapist.
    • I don’t think I want to incur that much student debt again, especially not when we’re about to co-fund the kid’s college.
    • It would be fun to be back in school.
    • I loved grad school.
    • Would probably enjoy lower-level stuff now.
    • If I had the time to audit classes, I totally would.
    • Teaching would be rad, too.
    • The Path.
    • It’s interesting to look back and remember those choices that had an outsized impact on the course of your life.
    • Literally one thing.
    • Boom.
    • There are lots of little unnoticed moments that shape our lives, too, but it’s the big ones you remember.
    • Butterfly effect, right?
    • That makes me think of that Machines of Loving Grace song, “Butterfly Wings.”
    • Loved that band.
    • Still like those first two albums quite a bit.
    • I listen when I remember.
    • They had a song on The Crow soundtrack, “Golgotha Tenement Blues,” which was a pretty good song, but they never blew up.
    • I may go listen to them today.
    • After we figure out what we’re doing for dinner.
    • One of the worst things in adulting.
    • When you don’t know what you want, but you sure know what you don’t want when you hear it.
    • It’s probably going to be Meddys (it was).
    • (I’ll cook tomorrow; it’s been a couple of days and nights of exhaustion.)
    • (Know when you’re beaten.)
    • (Meddys rocks, btw, and it’s not terribly expensive by comparison.)
    • Shawarma rules.
    • I had no idea.
    • My exposure to it before now was the end-credits scene after “Avengers.”
    • (I want to do a head-to-head comparison between shawarma and gyros.)
    • I’ll be a lot more excited about food when I’m also exercising again.
    • I’ll have that date on Friday.
    • Can’t wait.
    • Going five-for-five days with doc appts this week.
    • Combine that with mom’s stuff …
    • I’m bloody tired of doctors and medical facilities.
    • Not finished yet, but … soon.
    • …
    • Do not trust to flow.
    • It has abandoned these bullets.
    • I blame the exhaustion.
    • Then again, sometimes the stream of consciousness has rapids.
    • My TBR pile keeps growing.
    • I think I’m on the last book (currently) in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series (which I heard someone on the Internet describe as an “intergalactic Hunger Games”).
    • It’s good stuff.
    • Fun.
    • Also upcoming: …
    • Yeah, okay, I looked at my Kindle library and it’s running over with samples and other things I don’t remember getting.
    • …
    • I considered listing them, but there are probably 15.
    • Well, hell with it.
    • “Modern Divination” by Isa Agajanian
    • “Nettle & Bone” by T. Kingfisher
    • “Doorways in the Sand,” Roger Zelazny
    • “The Fourth Consort,” Edward Ashton
    • “An Easy Death,” Charlane Harris
    • “This is Your Brain on Music,” Daniel T. Levitin
    • “Written on the Dark,” Guy Gavriel Kay
    • “Practical Demonkeeping,” Christopher Moore
    • “The Original,” Brandon Sanderson & Mary Robinette Kowal
    • “The Raven Scholar,” Antonia Hodgson
    • “In the Garden of Beasts,” Erik Larson
    • “The Ophiuchi Hotline,” John Varley
    • “The Bone Season,” Samantha Shannon
    • And that’s just the stuff on the Kindle.
    • Not the paper books I have laying around.
    • And that’s not the whole “now reading” list.
    • A couple of those I already bought, so they aren’t samples.
    • A few are on Kindle Unlimited.
    • Authors get paid by the page on that?
    • (I didn’t even look into it when I pubbed that short story.)
    • I’m sure Amazon pays less now, or has jacked up the system.
    • When I published that short story, I feel like Amazon got much more of the 99 cents than I did.
    • The ratio was better if you charged at least $1.99, I think?
    • Again, the creatives doing the work, some other entity profiting from it.
    • Shocking!
    • Shocked!
    • Stunned!
    • …
    • I gotta stop.
    • We have Ironheart to watch.
    • Back tomorrow …
    • …
    • …
    • Yeah, I did not get this posted before I went to bed.
    • Going to post it now and then get on with today’s.