It occurred to me that clothes that push all your flesh around in unflattering ways should not be worn. Therefore, the only answer is “naked.” Also, if you stretch your arms high, it stretches the flesh too. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is acceptable in civil society.

My new birdfeeder is still full, a week later. I’m guessing it takes a while for the birds to realize it’s there… though I’m kind of curious as to why there’s bird shit on the roof of it. Is that some sort of review of my bird feeder??

And Fergus, whom Todd says now has a girlfriend, is still digging around in my now-empty pot where the lettuce was. It’s kind of like a game we’re playing. I smooth the soil over and the next day it’s all pushed around again. In any case, he hasn’t noticed the bird feeder.

I’ve been driving around now for 3 weeks with a dead stinkbug on my dash. He’s all bleached out now too. I’ve named him Stanley.  

I finally snapped. On some poor unsuspecting young man who I mistook for someone with a bad attitude. I am a total asshole and I feel awful. I need a do-over.

Meanwhile, some other kid who is a total asshole has posted again on the community page that he is looking for work. However, he refuses to change his profile picture of himself and his dead best friend raising their middle fingers to the camera – as several adults have suggested might help his cause. He was flagrantly disrespectful to those well-meaning comments and one wonders how this kid made it out of the womb. Oh, wait…

There’s nothing more terrifying when you’re still half asleep and sitting on the toilet, than when not one but TWO spiders are charging right towards you.

And, while we’re on the subject of “bugs” (I use this term broadly), I had a standoff later the same day with a wasp in front of my grill. This thing chased me away while I was lighting the grill and then sat down, shaking its back end, a foot away from it. I had to pass it to get inside the house and I was terrified. Any time I got close it starting rattling it’s wings and body like it was having a seizure.

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend recently whereby we acknowledged our similarities in appreciating the instant gratification that comes from vacuuming that we just can’t get from doing laundry. I also humbly admitted that I, too, can sometimes lack empathy. It’s not that we’re bad people, we just don’t need to encourage “some” people to swim in the pool of self-pity. There might have been more to this, but I feel a bit vulnerable to criticism right now so I’ll leave it there.

I’ve also given up arguing with people about masks. Something that’s not supposed to be political somehow has become political and it’s all so exhausting. People are STILL either not wearing a mask, or wearing it under their nose. I saw this yesterday at the hair salon and I’m feeling like I won’t be back without a guarantee that their own employees are doing it correctly AND enforcing clients to wear one as stated in the guidelines.

The under-the-nose style has now been surpassed by the wearing-one-but only-over-my-chin in the level of maddening stupidity I have to witness every time I go to the store. Cleanest chin in the history of pandemics, I’d wager.

Speaking of exhausting, I’m so damn tired of politics. And how a pandemic became political.

The friend who had called me out about Kaepernick? In the private exchange between us she “encouraged” me to “keep going and speak up and out about [my] shame and embarrassment and what it’s taught [me].” If I’m being honest, I hardly feel that shame is an accurate response. I may also have misinterpreted her meaning, but it sure felt like it was expected of me, and that left a really bad taste in my mouth. And I recently noticed she unfriended me anyway.

Jet Douching. I thought I knew what douching was and so this idea of jet douching sounded a bit, oh I don’t know, alarming. Turns out it’s not what you think. It’s also called “blitzing,” and in England you can receive this treatment that “uses the power of water to pummel fatty areas – such as the thighs and buttocks – into submission” for roughly £35. It alternates blasts of hot and cold water to those targeted areas, and apparently there’s no “don’t try this at home” warning label. Stay tuned.

I took some of my own advice and started on two renovations. One is the long-awaited laundry room and the other is the hall bathroom. I know you’re not supposed to start two at the same time, but the spackle was out and I was slinging mud everywhere it was needed.

There’s a mosquito in my house. I don’t think I need to clarify how I know this. Just – if you happen to see me, know that I do not have a contagious skin disease.

*Sorry I’ve been gone so long. I have excuses. I’m stepping up today to catch up.