Tag: grief

Diamonds

Monday and back to the office with me. Woo-hoo!

I did not want to get out of bed this morning, either, as the real effect of the lost hour actually is felt this morning. I could have easily stayed in bed for another couple of hours, without question–it’s also a bit chilly this morning in New Orleans; we’re having a bit of a mid-March cold spell, with evening/night temperatures dipping into the forties this week. Because that will make getting out of bed easier.

Yesterday was a strange day in which I never seemed to get my gears in working order. Looking back now on yesterday, I didn’t get much done but am not sure why or how the day managed to slip through my fingers. The weekend wasn’t a good time for me, alas; this not being able to maintain iron control over my emotions and my moods is something I don’t care much for, in all honesty. I did start watching the Academy Awards last night–I had to go to bed before the final hour of the show–but while usually I find the Oscars to be a tedious, self-congratulatory bore last night’s show didn’t seem that way. The winners all seemed to be genuinely delighted and appreciative of the honor received (as well as humble), and the speeches all seemed to not last terribly long for a change (I think my favorite, though, was the songwriter for “Naatu Naatu” who sang to the tune of the the Carpenters’ “Top of the World” a very sweet series of thank you’s. One can never go wrong choosing Karen Carpenter on any level of anything). I was happy to see upon awakening that Michelle Yeoh and Brendan Fraser won their categories (I used to have the biggest crush on him during his The Mummy/Gods and Monsters/ George of the Jungle days, and always felt he was more talented than he was given credit for, and now he’s an Oscar winner! The guy from George of the Jungle!); these Oscars seemed to be the “comeback” recognition awards–Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis winning supporting kind of fell into that type of win as well, but Curtis has been award-worthy before and her past as a Scream Queen always, I thought, kept her out of the running for some truly magical comedic performances over the years. It’s funny, yesterday I was thinking (and posted) about awards and so forth, and I wound up enjoying the Oscars for the first time in years. Go figure.

But this morning I’ve got to shake off the malaise or whatever the hell I experienced this weekend–I suppose it counts as a low, a valley of sorts, a holler–and get back into it this week. I know I’m supposed to be being kinder to myself these days, and that something I really want to be working on for myself going forward, but it’s hard sometimes, and when I wake up on Monday morning and see the abyss of nothing the weekend was, I kind of want to slap myself alongside the head…but that’s not really productive and the truth of the matter is sometimes you need to have those downtimes, I suppose. I am kind of tired of being all over the map emotionally lately, and the depression, which is never terribly far from the center of my brain, has really got to go. But that’s also easier said than done, by a long shot–what isn’t, really–but I guess I just need to let my mind and my subconscious and my emotional self process and go through what it needs to go through to get to the end of this.

It must have rained last night, because it’s chillier again this week than it has been, and usually a thunderstorm of some sort presages and predicts colder weather. I had to turn the heat/defroster on in the car this morning and frankly, the warm air felt lovely. I think I got a “weather alert” last night before I went to bed warning of a coming thunderstorm? I must have slept through it completely; I was out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow last night, which I didn’t think was going to happen, in all honesty; I worried about the time change and getting up an hour “later” than I usually do and all that stuff; the time change day is always kind of a waste, anyway because everything always feels off and wrong, you know? It always takes a couple of days for me to readjust and get back in sync with the clock and the calendar.

I did finish watching the Caril Fugate documentary, and I am not really sure how I feel about it. It’s trying to combat the narrative that she was a willing accomplice; one that has been pretty well established by adaptations and books and so forth that have flooded the market since the Starkweather shootings…and the fact the only evidence contradicting her story is Starkweather’s statements; I’m not so sure that he was a credible witness. It did put me in mind of how horrible it would be to experience such trauma at fourteen, then to spend over twenty years in jail for something you didn’t do, and to have that haunt you for the rest of your life when you didn’t do anything is probably the worst nightmare of a life to have. I also kind of had to wonder–why was she tried as an adult at fourteen? The way the whole case was handled in the first place was all kinds of wrong; but what would such a case look like today? A circus on a much grander, broader, global stage–as opposed to the circus of the pre-cable and pre-Internet times. With the Starkweather shootings in Nebraska coming so close on the heels of the Clutter murders in Kansas (In Cold Blood), I would imagine the people in the prairie states started locking their doors in 1958.

Ah, the prairie. I should do one of those listicles at some point for prairie noir–right off the top of my head I can think of a few books that would fit into that list.

And on that note I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely Monday, Constant Reader, and I’ll keep you in my thoughts, okay?

You Can’t Walk In Your Sleep (If You Can’t Sleep)

Saturday!

The bad news is that the dryer’s issue wasn’t the thermal heating fuse, alas. I did manage to get the back off the dryer so I could replace said fuse, but even once I’d accomplished this feat, there was still no heat. So the problem is with the heating unit itself, and after pricing that, seeing how long it would take to get it in (assuming I could do it myself, but I watched a video and frankly, not comfortable with that)…I don’t think it’s worth me trying to accomplish. Realistically, we would need to call a technician/repairman whatever (minimum $200 just for showing up), and since the part also costs almost $200, it would only take another few hundred bucks or so more to get a new one. (Our dryer is 11 years old; dryers traditionally last on average, per Google, 7-10 years so we got more use out of this one than the last one.) Disposable society, remember? And if we get it from Costco, everything is included–delivery, installation, hauling away the old one–so….I guess we’re getting a new dryer at some point. Yay. We’ll also be getting a new refrigerator, too, at some point, probably after the Festivals are over. Hurray for new appliances.

Sigh.

But I’m proud of myself for at least trying to repair the dryer myself, and I am kind of proud that not only was I able to move the thing by myself but I was also able to take it all apart and put it all back together again without any issue or problem and it was much easier than I would have ever dreamed it would be. I suppose that comes from my longstanding feeling of not being particularly or especially masculine, so things like appliance repair and so forth seem like they’re out of my wheelhouse; primarily because I was always told I was clumsy and fumble-fingered and not dextrous at all, when the truth is I can pretty much do anything I want to do, if I put my mind to it and want to do it badly enough. (My mom was like that, too–she could literally do anything she decided to do. She decided to play golf, took some lessons and started winning golf tournaments. I was always terrible at golf, but like tennis–if I took lessons, wanted to do it badly enough, and put my mind to it, I’d probably be decent at it.) And now we have a definitive answer: yes, indeed, we need a new dryer. And I feel much better about spending the money because I tried to fix it and couldn’t because what needs doing was beyond my skill set comfort level. The heating coils and unit are too complicated for me, and they’re also too expensive to risk buying and then fucking them up–and I would be livid if I spent that money and fucked it up.

I think it’s also important to recognize one’s limitations and plan/live accordingly.

After failing to fix the dryer (but tried! I tried! I get credit for trying!), and sank into my easy chair to give Scooter a proper cushion to sleep on, I started the usual flipping through Youtube videos and began finding myself falling into a proper malaise and panic about any and everything and the usual spiral down into the pit of despair and I grabbed my spiraling brain with both hands (properly cleansed and sterilized first, of course) and said no you’re not going to do this snap out of it and get to work and I popped out of my chair and came into the kitchen and started. I filed, I created new files and put ones away; I put things that need priority attention this weekend into the nearest inbox; put books away and wiped down counters. I reorganized books in the laundry room and found places for things. I threw things away that were no longer of need, unless I need dusty things lying around, which I do not. I swept the living room and put things away and straightened up in there. I made a plan of action for today which I plan to stick to resolutely. And if I should start feeling lazy, or take a break that begins to turn into something longer and perhaps counter-productive, I plan to slap myself silly until I snap back out of it and dive back into, if not writing, then at least rereading and editing along as I go. I am way behind, way off schedule, and I can still get what I need and want to get done this year as long as I don’t allow distractions and other things draw my focus away from where it needs to be. I will still continue being kinder to myself than I have been most of my life–that horrible self-criticism default and dreadful little voice in my head seriously can go fuck themselves–because I don’t think I need to be so hard on myself to drive myself anymore. I am not the “loser” I was convinced that I was for so long. I don’t have to keep proving my worth and my value anymore. I may not be the best person that I can be–I can be a judgy bitch, without question or doubt–but I am competent and efficient and I work very hard and can produce good work.

I don’t need to prove anyone wrong anymore.

That was a lovely realization to come to, and I am glad that I had that lightbulb moment last night. I also know that I am probably still overly raw emotionally and in the midst of the inevitable mood swings that come in the wake of grief. I remember how it was after Paul was attacked, and after Katrina; there were good days and there were bad days, but the good days eventually began to outnumber the bad and things got better. And that’s how life works, isn’t it? (How profound.)

So, this morning I am going to drink coffee and after sending some emails, I will spend a couple of hours with Cheryl Head’s Time’s Undoing. After that I will get cleaned up thoroughly and get to work on my own work, which I will do (whilst cleaning around the writing and editing and revising) until five or six o’clock in the evening, at which time I will finish for the day and make Swedish meatballs for dinner. That sounds, to me at least, like a lovely plan. I hope you also have a lovely Saturday, Constant Reader, and I will check in with you again later, or tomorrow; one never knows, does on?

Fading Fast

Today’s title is an insanely accurate description of my memory; which has been fading faster and faster the older I get, which is endlessly annoying. I mean, it’s bad enough that my body has been endlessly betraying me more and more the older I get, but does my brain have to do it as well? Heavy heaving sigh. Granted, it’s not like I haven’t had reasons for my brain to stop functioning properly in the case of memory; we did have the trauma of a global pandemic on top of everything else that has been going on in the last few years, and of course, I’ve been stressed about Mom for the last three or four or five years or whenever all of her health issues began. I am slowly coming out of the funk, I think–I do think this every morning and then some time in the afternoon it hits me like a 2 x 4 between the eyes–and I need to reenter the world. I am going back to the office tomorrow for the first time in like well over a week, which has also been incredibly disorienting. I think getting back into my usual routine will make a huge and significant difference in my mental well-being; being off routine for someone as OCD as me is always an issue of sorts.

My toe is much better this morning, thanks for asking. It still hurts somewhat, but I spent most of yesterday elevating it or icing it, and I am not limping this morning. I think another day of icing and elevation may just do the trick…which makes me tend to think it’s not broken or bruised or sprained. Tomorrow morning I’ll take a picture of it and send it to my doctor through the app along with a note; I should have done this last week but…it’s been hard getting motivated lately. While I was icing and elevating yesterday I made some significant progress on Abby Collette’s marvelous Body and Soul Food, and I have to share something sort of funny with you at some point about that; I just realized yesterday that Abby Collette is a pseudonym of Abby L. Vandiver; and all along I kept wanting to say Body and Soul Food was written by Abby Vandiver; even correcting myself a couple of times here on the blog when I mentioned the author–and then would chastise myself for confusing two women of color (which happens a lot, sadly; I heard someone call Kellye Garrett Rachel once at a conference–Rachel Howzell Hall–and vowed I would never do that). Turns out the author is actually who I thought she was, just using a different name! This was kind of a relief, because the constant confusing Vandiver for Collette was making feel like I needed to work more on my own subconscious racism. But the book is engaging and entertaining–Abby and I were both in The Faking of the President anthology back in 2020–and I am looking forward to finishing it during this morning’s icing and elevating.

I didn’t leave the house yesterday other than taking out the recycling and a bag of garbage. Paul was gone most of the day–he came home from the office after I went to bed early–and I meant to get a lot more done yesterday than I eventually did get done. The kitchen looks much better than it did before all the stuff with Mom started, and while I still have some things that need to get done today before I return to the office tomorrow, but it’s progress and I will take it. As long as I can stay motivated today, I think I should be able to get a lot of things done today–things that need to be done. I need to make groceries today–I made the list yesterday when they canceled my pick-up order–and I need to get gas on the way home from that. Grocery shopping, lugging everything in from the car, and then putting it all away inevitably makes me tired and exhausted, so the key is to get everything set up before I head out so that I have no excuses and everything is out and ready for me with little to no effort.

I also decided to write something private, merely for me, about my mother. I think it’s necessary for me to sort out my complicated and complex feelings about my relationship with her and my family; there’s a lot of baggage and I am starting to see things now with the kind of clarity that wasn’t possible when she was still with us, if that makes any sense at all. It’s odd how that kind of clarity isn’t possible when they are still alive, you know? And the slow, subtle changes to my life that result from the loss of Mom I’m only now starting to realize. What does this mean about the holidays, going forward? I don’t feel guilty about anything–I thought I might when I lost a parent–but I really don’t. I didn’t write very much to begin with yesterday–a couple of hundred words, maybe, at best–but it was writing and it did help me somewhat…and let’s be honest, how do I deal with everything, really? By losing myself in my writing, that’s how.

My coffee tastes rather marvelous this morning, too. I slept in until eight thirty–I woke up at five thirty, as I do usually every morning–and feel very rested. If it weren’t for my toe, I’d say physically I feel about as good as I can for someone who hasn’t set foot in the gym for over a year. I can tell my muscles need to be worked and stretched and pushed to their limits again, and I think I am going to tell Paul to take my membership off-pause at the end of March; I’d say for March but I’m not sure that’s wise given the toe situation. I feel good this morning–probably best to say “at peace”, really–for the first time in a while. Acceptance has finally come–although I am sure the waves of grief will come back at some point, triggered by something–but I am not going to beat myself up for not getting a lot done this past week, or being pushed off track with everything by Mom dying. I am very behind on everything, and I need to start digging out from under.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and start the elevating/icing process for today. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader.

Rock and a Hard Place

Thursday and the morning of the Muses parade. There are three parades tonight–first Babylon, then Chaos, and capped off by super-krewe Muses and their shoes–and while I am not in a great parade mood, I will probably go out there for a little while at the very least. Tomorrow and Monday are work-at-home days for me because of the parades, and also the days I have to get any errands or anything done that requires using the car because from about five o’clock on Friday till about one in the morning after Bacchus my car cannot be moved–I mean, I can move it, but won’t get very far because I have to stay inside the box. So I will probably try to make groceries on Friday morning, and then on Monday I will try to get the mail and pick up a prescription. It’s going to be an odd weekend. I have lots of stuff to do and I don’t really want to miss the Iris parade Saturday morning; I’ll probably also do Orpheus on Monday; I may go out there a bit on Friday night–those Friday night parades are fun–but for the most part I think I am going to skip the festivities as a general rule. I am already exhausted, but we’ll see how it all goes.

I’m adjusting. My friend Victoria, who lost her wife just before Christmas, compares grief to an undertow: “one moment you’re perfectly fine the next you’re being sucked under.” She’s not wrong, and it’s a pretty good analogy, to be honest (she’s always been an intelligent writer). I find myself getting dragged under at the most unexpected times, and triggered by the most unexpected things; I was going to wash dishes on Tuesday night, so I filled the sink with soapy water and had just put the last dirty dish in the water when I heard my mom saying you always wash the dishes first because the dishwasher is really just good for sterilizing and so I’ve always washed the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. It made me smile a bit wistfully when I heard her, and then came the waves and I was sucked under, and I never did get back to the dishes Tuesday night (I finished them last night). I wash and fold my clothes the way she did–there’s all these little things I do every day that I do because that’s the way my mom did them.

Sigh. Even though I lived over seven hundred miles away from my parents for the last twenty-four or five years, my mother’s influence on me and how I do things will last until I’m in my own grave. I did manage to get a load of laundry done last night, put the dishes away, and managed another load in the dishwasher as well. I’m not motivated this week, which I suppose isn’t really the surprise that I think it is, really. What makes it worse is I was already in the malaise after finishing two manuscripts back to back. I had hoped to get one of them edited and revised this month, and here we are on the 16th with only twelve days left in the month and I haven’t revised a fucking thing. When I got home from work yesterday I discovered a very sweet voicemail from my father on my phone which kind of sent me into a tailspin of sorts–he was worried about me being down here alone with my grief; at least he “has (my) sister and her kids” around him to lessen the grief and keep him occupied. I was so incredibly touched–even writing the words just now filled my eyes with tears again–that in the middle of what has to be all-consuming grief, living alone in the house they shared for the last twenty-five years and where everywhere you look is a reminder of her, he was able to put all that aside to worry about me?

Well, I just found out the service in Alabama is this weekend, so I’ll be leaving New Orleans Saturday morning before they close St. Charles and staying through Monday–so I can get home before they close the streets for Orpheus. I guess that will be the official closure for me–but I am fairly certain the grief is going to be with me for awhile yet. So no Iris or Tucks or Bacchus for me this year, which is kind of fine, really; I am not feeling parade season this year, honestly. I had been thinking that I’d be able to forget everything and enjoy myself for a bit at the parades, but…last night when I heard Druids passing at the corner the last thing in the world I wanted to do was head to the corner. I also did something to my big toe–sprained it maybe–I don’t know what or remember how I did it or when it happened, but at some point yesterday my big toe started throbbing and it hurts still this morning; whenever I put weight or pressure on it, it hurts. It’s so lovely having your body break down all around you, one of the great joys of becoming older.

I slept pretty decently last night, too, which was nice. I hate the lethargy of malaise mixed with grief; this is a witch’s brew I could have easily gone the rest of my life not knowing about. It’s also going to be weird being back in Alabama, too—I’ve not been back to where we’re from since my grandfather’s funeral, in either 2003 or 2004? Maybe it was earlier, because I think I had a car and there was a year or so at the beginning of the century when I didn’t have one. I should take advantage of this to drive around and take pictures of things for my memories and for future writing…and on THAT note, I think I’m going to head into the spice mines. Have a lovely Thursday, Constant Reader, and I will be back later.