A Queer Life

When I was at the gym yesterday, everyone kept asking why I was sitting still on the stationary bike. I’m going downhill dude, mind your own business.  Hello my pretties! I'm a little distracted today. I haven't kept up my blogging routine, which is funny because I've been home more. One thing I love about my job is they close for all the bad weather, so I don't work nearly as much as I could. That was part of my reasoning when I chose it. I haven't been to work for six days, it's like a vacation. I get to sleep in and write all day. Except that I have barely slept in and I haven't been writing. Maybe it's time for coffee.  Yesterday I watched a fascinating video about sociopaths and how they work. The video was just a woman talking, let's call her Janice. Janice was a diagnosed sociopath and also a licensed clinical psychologist, so she had a unique perspective on the condition.  I think there is a lot of fear in our society around sociopaths becaus...

Two fish are in a tank. One looks to the other and says, “Do you know how to drive this thing?” Hello my pretties! This morning I thought about my old friend, Angie.  Angie was my best friend from middle school and into college. I went on family trips with her. I knew her grandma and cousins. I cried when I read about her dad's death on Facebook. But Angie was never Mormon, which didn't bother me in middle school but by college when I doubled down on Mormonism, her lack of membership got in the way of our friendship. We probably would have drifted apart sooner or later, even if I wasn't a superior Mormon, but I wish I had been different.  This morning when I thought about her, I realized that I think about her every day, at least I have for the past few years and there are so many people in my life who were important to me and now, despite thinking about them regularly, I barely talk to them. And that makes me sad, but it's also kind of nice thinking of all the people I...

I will now be signing all emails with this disclaimer:  On average it takes me two days to overthink the best response to your email. You can be assured that I will reply to you in my head and forget to send you an actual reply. In the future, please save us both the stress on our mental health and avoid sending me any emails. Hello my pretties! On Sunday I received an email that caused me a lot of emotional turmoil. I spent the next few days working on my response. I cried, I got angry, I wanted to ignore it, I wanted to slam out a response and send it.  What I've done is write and edit and edit and edit some more. Today I thought I was ready to send it off, but instead of sending it to my mom (who is the final recipient) I sent it to my brother for feedback.   I have lots of issues with my mom. I haven't been able to talk to her for years now. I didn't really decide this, it just happened because whenever I thought about talking to her I got panic attacks. So on Sunday ...

Every morning I announce I’m going running, then I don’t run. It’s a running joke. Hello my pretties! As I've said before, I watch too much YouTube. Then I stop watching YouTube and I feel better about life and everything else. Then I stumble onto YouTube again and the cycle repeats. The truth is YouTube is not just a destructive addiction, it also has valid, wonderful things on there I don't want to lump in with the garbage.  YouTube has helped me: Process religious trauma and articulate so many things actually wrong with Mormonism. Process past abusive relationships and how to move on and be stronger. Learn how to think critically.  Learn how to think philosophically. YouTube is an awesome learning tool, but it is also an entertainment tool and YouTube entertainment feels terrible to me.  So if I focus my YouTube time on learning then I can learn all kinds of things. I heard a rumor of a woman who learned accounting from YouTube and got a corner office without ever gett...

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.   Hello my pretties! Well it has been a nutty week. After an active shooter incident, I just spent the week wrung out at work. I didn't need this. Work feels like an emergency room, constantly being on my toes, reacting and triaging everything that walks through the door and barely getting anything else done. I guess that kind of job works for some people but not me. I went home every night and crashed a deep and senseless crash, only to wake up, unrested, and go again.  I spent all week feeling really frustrated and then yesterday happened. Yesterday I went to an hour and a half meeting where they gave us more problem solving tools. "I am not this person!" I screamed in my head. I don't want a job of surprises and riddles and new people every day.  I am over forty. After a life of feeling too young, too overwhelmed, too new at everything, I now feel more stable, more mature, ...

So I bought some of that anti-stress shampoo; I d on't know why people like it so much, I drank the whole bottle, and if anything, I feel worse. Hello my pretties! On my shower ledge sits a giant shampoo bottle. I have used this same bottle for several years. I don't know how many years, at least two, maybe four.  I had no shampoo thoughts until recently when I noticed it was lighter. I will need to buy shampoo soon. I haven't bought shampoo for years.  What kind of shampoo should I buy? I haven't paid attention to shampoo and it used to be so exciting to me. I loved the shiny bottles promising beautiful hair. I usually bought new kinds before the last bottle was empty so I would have multiple bottles in my shower at once.  But now I have one bottle, the same bottle for years, and it is almost empty and I don't know what to do. I have been out of the shampoo game for so long now, where do I even start? This morning for the first time, it occurred to me that maybe I ...

"Some days I do yoga and don't yell at my kids. Some days I scream at them while eating cake over the kitchen sink. It's called balance." - @katiebinghamsmith Hello my pretties! Motherhood.    The pressure of having a tiny, fragile life dependent on you for safety, emotional support, love, survival, food, shelter, and....and....and....everything. Their huge eyes, so trusting. Trusting you are capable of God-like power. Ultimate control over these helpless creatures can humble us or inebriate our ego.  I don't know which side of the fence I'm on; the idea of spending my day with people who won't brush their teeth or bathe or eat anything except candy without coercion makes me want to curl up and pull the blankets over my head.   Confessing my struggles to others was met with suggestions to ask moms for advice or read parenting books or some other third thing. What none of these sources address is how I'm supposed to parent when parenting feels unnatural...

Love means never having to say, "Put down that meat cleaver!" Hello my pretties! Once upon a time I was married to a man named Tyler. I knew something was wrong with our relationship, but it was like he cast a deep, black magic spell, creating confusion and brain fog whenever I thought about our marriage. We stumbled onto polyamory as an answer.  There are books about polyamory. There are blog posts about polyamory. There are polyamorous people. There are polyamorous groups. I devoured all the information I found. How exactly did it work?  "It can be anything you want it to be," people responded.  "Right, but what about the details?" I asked.  "Communication is very important," they responded. "Most problems are resolved with communication." "Okay, but I mean what about other details?" "Like what specifically?" "Like what if your partner has a new partner and they are bouncing around with excitement and you are ...