Calendar Girl
*tap tap* Is this thing still on?
Well, Happy Goddamn New Year, everybody. How are we all doing? Have I caught you mid-existential scream? I do apologize. I’d wait until you were done, but then I'll have started my own again. So we’d better just carry on and see what happens.
I keep meaning to write something here, but then everything feels hopeless again, and then I feel guilty, and then the guilt abates long enough for a tiny clawing frond of hope to unfurl and then I mean to write something here, but then everything feels hopeless again…
So we’d better just carry on and see what happens.
Some developments in my life, in no particular order:
The motor on the family blender finally burned itself out after roughly thirty years on the job. It died doing what it loved: blending. The next morning, with some ceremony, the blender my spouse brought to our marriage was unearthed from cold storage in the basement and pressed into service. I had always been wary of their 2001: A Space Odyssey-ish behemoth blender. It seemed… too effective. It has a spindle absolutely covered in blades that keeps the contents from clogging around the bottom of the pitcher, this thing is a nightmare of frozen fruit-killing efficiency—the xenomorph of kitchen equipment, if you will. But I felt a little silly continuing to avoid it now that I had no other options, so I resolved to grow as a person and try to use it without accidentally cutting myself or otherwise look foolish. I loaded the 72oz (72oz!!???!!) pitcher up with my usual mix of frozen berries, almonds, yogurt, and orange juice, fitted the (very large, I mean, very large) pitcher into the base, and pressed the “Medium” button. There have been some advancements in blender technology since the latter years of George H.W. Bush’s administration. My smoothie was smooth.
I have now made my way through the first two volumes of Robert Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson. I am in awe of Robert and Ina Caro. Lyndon Johnson… he was terrible in basically every way there was to be terrible. It’s almost impressive.
We have three kittens! We’ve had them for a few months now, and I love them so much. Highly recommend having a cat. Or two cats. Or three cats. Can’t recommend four cats because I have never had four cats, but there’s plenty of time for that. I’m sure I’ll recommend that too.
In writing news, I have managed—somehow, still not quite sure how this is happening—to write every day this year so far. It’s January. It’s cold and bleak and the pandemic situation is an endless yawning void. But I’m writing. Just a little bit every day. It’s shocking sometimes that I’m writing the same amount of words in a week that I used to write in a day and calling it priceless progress, but that’s how it is. And I am grateful.
If you’re struggling right now, I just want you to know—you’re not alone.
I wrote in my first real post here about my fascination with the Titanic disaster that has stayed with me throughout my life. (It isn’t the only disaster I have researched and held close, but more about that some other day.) This time we’re in now, with its endless cycles of exhaustion—it feels like we’re on the Titanic, but the Titanic has been sinking for two years and half the people on the boat still won’t acknowledge the ship is sinking, they won’t board the lifeboats, and they aren’t happy about us boarding the lifeboats either.
This is just by way of a reminder that you aren’t alone.
I’m not going to promise another post soon. I’m not good at following through on those promises. It might be next week, it might be five months from now. But I’m still here. And I’m glad you’re still here.