Today is a heavy anniversary day. It’s the anniversary of that thing that makes me cry and will always make me cry. That day that showed us the absolute worst a group can do to another and the little things that showed the best of humanity as a result. It’s the kind of anniversary that makes you want to hug your loved ones close (if I did that sort of thing) and do all the things you wish you could but scare your pants off. Which is why two years ago on this date I started writing this blog.
Two years of TMI and inappropriate sharing and pictures of wild life doing wild and scary wild life things. To years of blurting the wacky thoughts and feelings that occupy my headspace. Two years of challenging myself to embrace the freak-out that posting here does to me every single time. This date is reminder that life is short, to do and say the things that terrify you most. Which is why tomorrow freaking myself out again. Tomorrow I’m going to get as emotionally naked as I have ever been and I’m going to share my ‘Art’, my Stabby Trees and see if anyone wants to buys them. I can hear my friends telling me to be more positive. Ugh. I don't call this blog “Emotional Maintenance’ for nothing. So, a more positive spin on that sentence would be, “Tomorrow I’m going to sell my trees to people who find them as enjoyable as I do. “ Snort. Positivity doesn’t sit well with me. There are too many "What if..." scenarios floating about in my head to blow sunshine up my butt. A more realistic (and yes, negative) version of that sentence would be “Tomorrow, I’m going to stand around for eight hours and be judged.” It’s funny, most people think performing on stage is the most terrifying thing I could do but on stage, there is a character I’m playing. A character I’ve created and spent time on and lived with and if people hate what I’ve done, I can say they actually hate the writing not me. Or I can say that the interpretation of the character was because of how the author wrote it or how the director told me to play it or because the audience was a shit that night. Then I can go out with my fellow actors and cuss the critics out while drowning my righteousness and misunderstood talent in booze. But this, this ‘art’ thing is way WAY more terrifying. I’ve made these trees in my studio at home. I’ve enjoyed making these trees. They make me happy to look at them, see them catching the light from the windows in the morning or casting shadows on the walls at dusk. They evoke such feeling in me that I am more than a little scared to stand in the booth tomorrow and let people pick them apart to my face. So I’ve created a list of the worst things that could happen – mostly to get the worst-case scenarios out of my head. There are more things spinning around my head than are listed here but this is all I can firm up and focus on right now. Really the day will be what it is. People will buy or they won't. And if they don't, I get to take my trees home and look at them some more. Silver lining: I’m with my friend – who talked me into this thing – so I can spend the time laughing and joking and hating on her while no one buys anything. It’s the little things… Okay, here comes the crazy: · No one buys anything. · Someone bleeds. They are Stabby Trees after all, so someone might stab themselves and bleed and that someone might not me. · I’m in a booth next to the chiropractor I broke up with in January and I have to pretend I don’t think he’s a Napoleon-istic, verbally abusive ass all day. · No one buys anything. · Worse, people walk buy, look at the trees, say something passive like “Oh… that’s um… interesting…” and then walk on by. · People hurry past with that smug “Aw, you poor sweet thing.” smile on their face. · My friend sells way more than me and spends the day trying to make me feel better. · I have one of those hot flashes that make me squirt sweat out of my forehead at an alarming rate. · My credit card reader thing doesn’t work. · It rains and no one comes. · I have one of those emotional hot flashes that make me burst into tears for no apparent reason and cannot get myself under control. · It’s too hot and no one comes. · I have to use the port-a-potty. Who am I kidding? We’re there for hours. I’m going to have to use the port-a-potty. Ugh. · Someone buys a tree and hates it. · No one buys anything. No one buys anything. No one buys anything....
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I didn't write today because I spent my brain/creative power finishing these and taking blurry pictures of them - Getting ready for my first official showing of 'Art' since I won a place in City Hall with my Georgia O'Keeffe reproduction in sixth grade. Which means, I'm getting ready for my first official showing AND freaking the F out every few minutes.
Side Note: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Lee Child books and the newest one came out yesterday. My self-reward for getting emotionally naked on Saturday and showing my 'Art' to people, I'm going to get the book, surround myself with great tasting crap food and murder a few people along side Jack Reacher. It's the little things, people. The little things. For the past three days, Husband has been convinced we have a grasshopper in the house. Idiot that I am, I bought into it.
It was a totally believable possibility. We currently have a stick bug on the screen door the size of my hand that has been hanging out there for days. A grasshopper in the house, yeah, that could totally happen. He’d hear a chirp and pause the TV and then we’d spend a few minutes hunting around the room, trying to locate the sucker, fail, sit down and the cycle would start over again. But it wasn’t a grasshopper. I know this because at 3am this morning, the sucker chirped again and Tigger the Dog went metal and it became apparent that it wasn’t an annoying grasshopper chirp at all. What it was was the damn smoke alarm battery beeping that it was low and would like to be changed. Again. I say, ‘again’ because this happened two weeks ago - read about it here. Different alarm, of course but same annoying beep at an ungodly hour. It went off, Tigger the Dog went mental, Husband got the stepladder and stamped it about the rooms trying to find the offending alarm, pulled it down, removed the battery and that was that. And I say “that was that” because I did my part; I bought batteries to replace the offending one AND all the others. I left them on the counter for him to install. He just replaced the missing one and then nothing. The rest of the batteries sat on the counter for days, moved about to accommodate food and whatever but not one battery was replaced. I mentioned that all the smoke alarms needed to be replaced, that if one had been low, they would all be low. Still nothing. I mentioned that my reader in Australia had told me that they replaced all batteries when the time changed and that I’d said we did that here and still nothing. Sure, I could have replaced them all myself but, as I told my Australian reader, I was in a stand off with Husband. I’ve been feeling very lopsided in this relationship – read about it here and here to understand why – so I just moved the batteries into the guest room and each day I gently mentioned that it would be great if he could replace them all. And he didn’t. Or wouldn’t. Same thing. Nothing was done. Even when we replaced the batteries on the scale that said I weighed 124lb and was obviously broken, and I mentioned again that the all the smoke alarm batteries really should be replaced and I brought them to him with the stool, still nothing was done. Then, last night, as I was going to bed and he heard the damn grasshopper again, I snarked that it was probably the smoke alarms and he should change the batteries. And what do you know? I WAS RIGHT!!! I like being right. It fills me with such joy, such a sense of purpose and satisfaction. But I hate, hate, HATE being right at 3am in the morning with a dog cla-clang slamming her tail against the cage walls, manically squeaking her baby and Chewbacca whining at the top of her lungs. That kind of ‘right’ festers in your semi-sleep and you end up with a sore jaw from clenching your teeth together in order to not shout “I F-ING TOLD YOU SO!” at the top of your lungs and furrowed forehead from thinking all those “IF ONLY YOU’D LISTENED TO ME…” thoughts while Husband is stamping about with the step stool trying to find the damn chirping not-a-grasshopper-at-all alarm. 'Right' at 3am is wrong. But to be clear, so was Husband. So. Very. Wrong. Every morning, I get up and let Tigger the Dog out to do her morning business. I stand on the front steps watching her as she picks her spot. Sometimes it’s beautiful and I enjoy the time she takes. Sometimes it’s too hot or too cold and I grumble at her to hurry up. when she’s finally done, she comes back inside and I throw her two little treats as a reward for doing what comes naturally. This happens every day.
And yesterday, it occurred to me that I could base the success of my day on the success of my getting those two little treats into her mouth. Today should be a good one; each treat was received directly into her mouth. Yesterday, not so much. Yesterday the first treat bounced off her nose and landed on the carpet five feet away. She looked at me in confusion, as if to say, “What the hell?” I told her to wait and threw the second one – which hit her chin, ricochet off the dog bed and somehow took a sharp right and landed under the couch. We took a moment, both looking in the direction of the treat then she turned to me and with her eyes asked me, “Now what, dumbass?” With a shake of my head I walked over to the first treat, picked it up and re-launched. The treat landed on her bed not in her mouth but she managed to made short work of it regardless. The second treat had lodged itself right in the middle of the underside of the couch, right where the dust balls gather to hide from the vacuum. Getting it required getting down on both knees and reaching, arms sliding a path through the dustbowl to pluck the fuzzy treat out of the pile. I didn’t even bother with a second throw, I just placed it, woolly side down, on her bed. That was how the day started. It ended with a forty-five minute “visit” from The Mayor of Our Street as she campaigned for her friend running for council. Forty-five minutes she sat in the front seat of her car in our new driveway – the one we had to get because people used our driveway as a U-turn. The one she keeps says she was flabbergasted to hear that people used as a U-turn but then kept telling me how horrible it was when she used it as a U-turn… Anyway, forty five minutes as Husband HID in the house and I swatted bugs and tried to prevent TTD from jumping onto her somewhat white pants and debated if I should interrupt her dictation to ask if the mascara eyeliner smear was choice or if it was running away from her eyelids. As I don’t wear makeup and really wanted to get my dinner and my mother raised me better, I went with "choice" and kept my mouth shut. It’s a good thing we still have some Apple Pie Moonshine left because it made it all better. So did Husband rubbing my head as I passed out – I mean, drifted off to sleep on the couch. Side note: I got mail from Mom. I love mail from Mom. Mom communicates in comic strips, she always has. I have three large frames of comic strips she used to cut out for me regarding hair. I have them hanging in my studio and they make me smile and think of her every time I see her. My mom is awesome. Anyway, here’s a picture of my mail from Mom. Consider it a pallet cleanser after the image of our dust bunnies and The Mayor of Our Street’s makeup. I know I need one. According to my personal Facebook page, I currently have 460 “friends.” Of those “friends” 70 of them live in the Nashville area. And of those 70, I can tell how many read my blog based on the amount of folk who hug me in person and don’t make a joke out of it. Because, if you read my blog, you know I’m not a hugger – and yet the awkward touching continues. But some people do listen. Some people think I’m weird and funny despite my serious issues that should probably be addressed in therapy and not just here in blog posts labeled 'Emotional Maintenance'... Some people still like the mess that is me and send me cards like this – THE BEST CARD EVER!!!
Some of my “friends” are actual FRIENDS and that is a pretty awesome thing to know. |
AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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