all the feelings

i found out late last week that one of my nieces died. she was found drowned in a river near where she lives. she was 25.

i got the news via text message from brother #2. at first i thought it was a horrible joke. my brother has always been a bit of a prankster, but after i sat for a minute i realized he wouldn't joke about something like that.

the details surrounding her death are suspicious, which does not help. it made my brain spin all weekend and finally i realized that thinking about the unknown whys doesn't help. not me, not my brother, not my niece. it doesn't change the reality that she is gone.

i've been in a fog all weekend, and still today. i'd like to be able to be at her funeral but geography prevents me.

hug your loved ones, even if it is awkward. tell them that you love them. do the little things that make them feel loved.

don't let a day go by that may be their last without exuding love.

things i used to do

before i got married (not even before kids, longer ago than that) i used to . . .

write stories
draw
spend half a day reading for the heck of it
exercise regularly
go out with friends (heck, HAVE friends)
go to movies
look forward to the future
be silly
feel contented
be happy

now, i . . .

rarely write, unless it's for work or a class
have many sketchbooks awaiting my pencil. i'm not even sure i could draw anymore if i tried
mostly read things related to work, or for a class
exercise to drop the 60 pounds i have gained over the last 14 years
stay home & have few friends
watch TV at home
dread the future
have to be responsible beyond normal limits
am anxious, serious and on edge
am probably depressed

i'm trying to get back to before. but i'm not sure how.

this is my reality

washing the dishes in a tote in the tub. my sister is not coming for her visit. i am relieved. i don't want to let anyone in my house at all. i want to hide

sometimes handy husbands aren't

cowboy charming worked construction for about 12 years before he got a job with insurance. a job he hates and still has (which is another story). his specialty was carpentry and roofing, but he also knows some electrical and plumbing.

so when the sink started draining slowly a while back i figured no biggie, put some drain cleaner down, don't wash as many dishes, be aware of the "rising tide" from running the dishwasher, etc.

but then one day the sink overflowed from the dishwasher rising tide. which set cowboy charming on a frenzy. drain cleaners, snakes, opening the cleanout in the basement, etc.

we have gone through a gallon of muriatic acid and a gallon of sulfuric acid. yay horrible toxic chemical odors in the house!

since the drain is still running slow, he is convinced that there is a blockage in the portion of the drainpipe that is in the concrete of our basement floor.  something equivalent to a small rodent stuffed in there or a collapsed pipe that a tree root has gone through.  he continues to feed cleaner in the basement cleanout and attempt to fix the problem that way, but i have a feeling that the basement floor will soon be jackhammered up.

in the meantime he is still cooking and using regular dishes, which are piled up in the kitchen like an episode of hoarders.

i have bought disposable cups, plates, bowls & utensils.

soon i'll be washing dishes in my bathtub. i just know it.

oh, and did i mention my sister wants to come visit for a weekend at the end of june? yeah, that works out great.

quiet long weekend

took a day trip in advance of the holiday weekend with cowboy charming and the wee girl. had a good time. i don't think we argued once.  most of the rest of the weekend went the same way. i'm not sure if this means something or not. maybe we were just both relaxed for once.

cowboy charming had to work today. i took the wee girl for an outing and we had a pretty good time.

the kitchen sink is not draining. hasn't for a while, but now it's completely blocked it seems. cowboy charming has been pouring things down the drain and checking the cleanout for a while.

i'm getting tired of not being able to run the dishwasher or use the kitchen. and yet the dishes keep piling up because cowboy charming keeps cooking things.

i guess i'll be buying some paper plates & such to keep the mountain of mess at a minimum.

i don't really like you anymore

what do you do when you kind of feel like you don't really like your spouse anymore? like, you know that you were good with them when you got together but over the years you feel like somehow they've turned into somebody different, when really it's probably you changing more?

i don't know if i LIKE cowboy charming much anymore. or maybe it's just right now. with all the unrest in the country i feel like i'm seeing a side of him that i've never seen, and it's a judgemental, close-minded, knee-jerky-conservative, pretty much racist side of him. and i don't know how to talk to him when he starts. because if i try to have a logical reasoned discussion he gets mad that i don't agree with him 100% and then it turns into a fight and, you know, fights suck.

and in the midst of all this "i'm not sure if i really like you anymore" feelings, i am also wondering if i even love him anymore. and then i'm second-guessing if i ever loved him or if it was just me loving the idea of not being alone. and then i think about the ramifications of leaving him and they boggle my mind since they don't involve just me. they also involve the wee girl. and he is the daddy that she loves more than the moon. but there are times that i know he terrifies her. and times that he terrifies me. his anger terrifies and baffles me.

but maybe that's because i never really saw anger growing up. maybe my family was amazingly sedate when it came to feelings of anger. maybe what i'm seeing is normal but i don't know it's normal because i don't come from a normal family of origin.

but then what if it's not.

i'm paralyzed with uncertainty.

i think we both need therapy separately and together.

robots and sleep

i have noticed that when i get up in the morning, the first time i check twitter that there are a LOT of updates that happen overnight. like, a ridiculous amount of things.  it's very odd to see the 24 hour news/social media cycle in action, since people are tweeting from all around the world in all time zones.

for the accounts that i follow that appear to be people, some still seem to tweet a ridiculous number of times a day and throughout the night. i have decided that those people must be:

1. tweet bots
2. insomniacs with no job or true social life
3. people with a staff who manage their twitter presence
4. people who are more twitter savvy than me and able to schedule things to "auto-tweet" at set intervals in the future.

i don't have much commentary about tweet bots, but it seems very weird to me for someone to create a program to post things as if it were a person. creeps me out.

i shan't judge the insomniacs, because i am one. but i also try not to get online in the middle of the night since it only makes the insomnia worse. i attempt to keep good "sleep hygiene" in order to be able to function every day. at my job. and so i'll judge on the second bit: no job. get a job people. unless tweeting is your job, and that's kind of weird.

if you do have a job, but you're tweeting because twitter is a substitute for friends, be careful. you could lose your job. i also recommend getting involved in volunteering or a community organization that gets you in touch with people. if you have some sort of mental problem that impairs you from interacting with people: please get counseling.

in regard to number three, something popped up in my feed about Joss Whedon leaving twitter, and lots of speculation about the "why" behind it, including that he didn't like some of the negative response to his latest movie (which i have not yet seen, and honestly thought was already out on DVD because i'm *that* disconnected from most popular culture). one of the articles explains that this is the second time he has "quit" twitter and actually quoted him as stating that he joined twitter back in 2013 to drive traffic to his production of Much Ado About Nothing and he compares twitter to a job that doesn't pay very well.

so he may have left because he didn't like fan feedback, or he could have left because he has other things to do and keeping up a twitter presence isn't high on his priority list (because i'm sure he's one of those people who is actually busy and would have to hire staff to manage his twitter presence, which also strikes me as a weird thing to hire someone for).

and if you can preset tweets, someone let me know, because that could be seriously useful in some ways.

anyhow, enough about twitter and people i don't know. for now. it's time for me to focus on my day job.

twitter and applesauce

so i opened a twitter account.  i guess you can follow me, or whatever you call it.

@RapnzlRavenhair

i'm still not sure what all the hoopla is, but apparently people need one. something about driving traffic to your online presence. i think i'm good with my blog and that twitter can be an extension. or a reminder to blog, so if people decide to read more there is something here.  but then again, even if nothing has been written, there is still something here. some ONE here.

me.

i'll continue to avoid facebook and instagram and the whatnots. i only have so much time to go around and i'm not convinced that i need a broad online presence.

i have decided that twitter is odd. i'm not sure of the rules or really the best way to use it. i have followed many of my favorite TV shows and some celebrity crushes. also a lot of things that i feel make me smarter like TED talks, museums, etc.

the other day one of my tweets was "favorited" by Mott's. applesauce liked my thought. well, Mott's applesauce i like you too. well, not just YOUR applesauce, but applesauce in general.

i have fond childhood memories of applesauce: eating it plain, eating it with added cinnamon (since there was basically one variety of applesauce when i was a kid and it was APPLESAUCE), eating it on pork chops, eating it with cottage cheese, using it as mix-in for plain yogurt (since flavored is expensive and, hey, 1 of 10 kids), and putting it on crepes.

i am teaching my wee girl to also like applesauce. she mostly eats it out of the single-serving cups. i love and hate the single-serving cups. i love them because we don't eat enough applesauce to warrant the purchase of a larger jar. i hate them because: trash.

but i will keep buying them. because applesauce is the thing childhood memories should be made of.

now, Mott's, don't go stealing that to sell applesauce. because it's not a commercial for you all. it is my personal observation about applesauce.

catch you all on the flip side. or twitter. whichever comes first.

in a better place

things are not perfect. they never will be. i realize this. i have realized this, although it made me unhappy.

however, in spite of that imperfection, i'm starting to feel a sense of equilibrium again instead of a sense of doom. cowboy charming has a list of "things to do" around the house and is taking a break from taking classes. i am taking just enough classes to keep my student loans from going into repayment. on my plate right now: literary theory.

yes, i'm finishing that English literature degree come hell or high water.

i am starting to de-crap the house. this makes my brain feel better. i have found a new doctor. new patient appointment is in May. i am going to see about a mental health referral since i do feel like there is something "off" with my emotional state and thinking in a way it wasn't in the past and i don't think it's just my thyroid.

i still am not sleeping well. i almost feel like if i could get rid of the insomnia a lot of other things would fall into place.

perhaps a mental health referral will help determine the reason for the chronic insomnia.

the wee girl is learning to read and write. she amazes me every day.

i think the wee girl is what keeps me tethered. i can endure anything for her.