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Pssst, pass it down

Today I climbed into the wayback machine and spent some time fondly remembering all of those notes I wrote during classes in middle and high school. I view it as a necessary stage of my adolescence, really, the Writing Notes stage.

Nowadays, of course, kids only have the put-their-heads-down-and-text-all-day-long stage. I think it’s different. Not necessarily bad, mind you, but different, and maybe just a little too quick. Then again, I’m a known curmudgeon, so what do I know?

Well, I know that I’m over at Feel More Better today, and I kind of wish teens would try writing notes, again. It probably won’t happen, but I dunno… there was some magic in those scribbles I just don’t think you can find on a text phone.

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Comments { 8 }

I’m awkward, and maybe a liar, but not a hipster

About two years ago, I went to a new optical place to have my eyes checked and to get new glasses. Some quick math reveals that I had already been living in Georgia for… erm… three and a half years, by then, and it was my first eye exam in this state. Prior to then, I’d just assumed my prescription was fine and not bothered with an exam. Oops.

But by the time I went in, I was having trouble seeing. I knew I needed an updated prescription. So off I went, and I was introduced to the wonder that was the ocular pressure testing wand and I got fitted for daily contact lenses and it was all very exciting. If you go back and look at that post, you’ll notice that I made absolutely no mention of having my eyes dilated at that exam. This will become important, later.

Anyway. A year after that last appointment, Dr. Eyeball’s office developed an unrequited crush on me. At first, postcards arrived in the mail. “Hi, Mir! We hope you’ve had a great year! We miss you here at Optical Place and you’re due for an exam! WHY NOT CALL TODAY YOU HORRIBLE PERSON?!” (I threw the cards out, of course, but I’m pretty sure that’s what they said.) Then there were emails. And finally, phone messages. (more…)

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Comments { 53 }

Aquaphobia

One of the things I found myself doing yesterday (and several days prior)—before I wrote about the difference between Young Blogging Me and the current Old And Smarter But Fatter And Crankier Me—was going back and reading some of my old posts. I don’t do this very often. And usually, you know, I remember stuff I wrote about before (duh), but occasionally a post is a COMPLETE surprise (read: repressed memory), and very often, something falls into the realm of “Oh, I remember that, but until I read this, I had kinda-sorta forgotten.”

So it was just yesterday that I found myself rereading various posts detailing The Great Flood of 2006, wherein my basement flooded not once, but TWICE, and I came down with bronchitis and was convinced I had mold in my lungs from all of the associated cleanup, because that’s logical and also I am a little bit of a hypochondriac. Know what our lovely home here in Georgia doesn’t have? A BASEMENT. That makes it my most favorite house ever, by the way.

Anyway, that’s preface to what I’ll tell you next, because yes, I was a little… uhhhh… primed with memories of water disasters. (more…)

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Comments { 40 }

Shut up, hindsight

One of the interesting side effects of having cut waaaaaaaay back on working and marketing myself last year is that I am no longer a Hot Internet Commodity. Bloggers are a dime a dozen, after all, and the thing is, I always had really mixed feelings about that whole Hot Internet Commodity thing, anyway. So now I’m doing all of this Restructuring and Goal-Setting and Planning For The Future and blah blah blah (wake up! I’m getting to a point here!) and trying to decide whether I even WANT to “raise my visibility” to where it used to be.

Even writing that out makes me want to punch myself in the face. I never did any of this because I wanted to Be Someone. I think a lot of people do it to gain some sort of fame/notoriety, but I also think more people than you might guess are more like me—there’s a love of storytelling, an impulse to write, and an oft-whispered wish that mostly, you are just normal, and therefore, forgettable.

So next week I’m going to do an Interview Thing, and I don’t do a lot in the way of actual on-camera stuff, EVER, and I told myself I should do this thing because it’s good practice for me and will give me another recent something to add to the resume as I ramp back up, work-wise, but over the last two days I realized that’s not why I want to do it. I want to do it because I feel like I need to do some penance. (more…)

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Comments { 42 }

Some things bear repeating

Today I’m over at Feel More Better, talking about words, choosing them carefully, and repeating the important ones. As a person who’s spent most of my life trying to edit down the amount of stuff that comes out of my mouth (or my fingertips), it’s been interesting to realize that not everything that’s repetitive is is bad.

Come on over and weigh in—can you embrace being redundant? I’m trying to.

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Comments { 4 }

Various thoughts, both deep and not

I laid around with my virus-that-is-not-the-flu-dammit for a couple of days, and then I felt better and got up and did stuff. Then I felt sort of sick again. Then better. Now I am just annoyed by the whole thing; there is little I find as vexing as being sort-of-sick. Either I want to be Justifiably Ill and free to take to my bed without guilt, or I want to be well. This in-between thing where I just feel kind of punky is aggravating. Make up your mind, immune system!

So for however many days, there, dinnertime would roll around and I’d be all, “Oh, you’re hungry? Okay… ummmm… I think there’s some leftovers…?” I was falling down on my duties as a contributing member of the household, is my point. This weekend as I felt a little better I did things like dishes and laundry and such, and now today I’ve got a crock pot full of Karen’s turkey chili going (make that IMMEDIATELY if you’ve never had it; it’s phenomenal) (we used to eat it all the time until Chickadee went vegetarian, and then this weekend I was all OH HEY CHICKADEE’S NOT HERE, LET US DINE ON MEATINESS like I’d just realized we could do that), so I feel like I’m at least sort of earning my keep, again.

I’m in one of those phases where I lie in bed at night and have trouble turning my brain off. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, I busy Thinking Thinky Things, whether I want to or not. This is never good. (more…)

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Comments { 18 }

Brass tacks for 2013

I’m currently in full-on LET’S GET THIS NEXT CHAPTER STARTED mode. Waiting for the flip of the calendar was arbitrary, sure, but sometimes you need something like that to help you move on.

So I flipped the calendar, put on my big girl panties, and am trying to Get Stuff Done. It’s terrifying, but kind of good, too.

On my way to this mode I watched some football, and had a few onion-dip-related epiphanies over at Feel More Better. I don’t know that it’s completely changed my life, or anything, but it definitely tweaked my outlook in a few important ways. Come on over and weigh in, if you’re so inclined.

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Comments { 4 }

Good riddance, 2012

I feel like I could make with OH SO MANY WORDS about the suckage of 2012, but frankly I am sick of it and have no desire to rehash. If you were here, you already know. If you weren’t, well, I guess we could do an in-a-nutshell retrospective as a sidebar if I could do one for real.

[I can't do a real sidebar, so here's a fake one. Sidebar: 2012 sucked hairy donkey balls. Chickadee spent half the year in the hospital and I spent months fighting for Medicaid coverage for her while fighting for decent treatment, and then she decided to go live with her dad. (Single bright spot during that: You all helped me do an amazing thing for the hospital and I love you for it.) Otto's car imploded in Atlanta one day and then we had to rush Monkey to the ER with suspected appendicitis and my mother-in-law passed away. For further hilarity, I then broke my hand on an apple and became bionic. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, we capped it all off with it seeming like Licorice might be deathly ill (though, fortunately, that one turned out okay). It was kind of A Year, is all I'm saying.]

Was there ever a year I was so happy to see end? I can’t think of one. Though we all know that the human brain is a miraculous thing; if there HAS been a year similarly awful, I have clearly repressed it. Lalalalala! I can’t heeeeeear you! I look forward to this year’s razor-sharp edges dulling in my mind, as well. The sooner the better.

Naturally, there was nothing left to do but get my woo-woo on. (more…)

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Comments { 47 }

No one shot their eye out

Was it a successful Christmas at Casa Mir? I think it was. No one threw up, no bones were broken, there were no car accidents or kitchen fires or other disasters.

I mean, sure, I discovered mid-afternoon that somehow my father has never seen A Christmas Story, but that was easily remedied. Even as Chickadee loudly and frequently proclaimed that this was “the dumbest movie ever,” I noticed that didn’t stop her from watching it with us. Because really, no matter how you think you feel about it, once you happen upon this movie on the television on Christmas day, you are legally obligated to complete the viewing. And even if you think you hate it, you will still laugh in all of the appropriate places. (“… only I didn’t say ‘fudge.’”)

So all in all: A lovely day. There were some highs and lows, of course. (more…)

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Comments { 29 }

Holiday meltdown in 3… 2…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and by “wonderful” I of course mean “stressful, over-hyped, and mob mentality PMS-filled.” Because really, it’s not just us, right? EVERYONE is cranky? Like, “Happy Holidays! ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME?” kind of cranky? I want to be peaceful and calm and bright, I do. And I assume other folks do as well. But the pace of the season and the rushrushrush to finish school/work/life-goals before Christmas and/or the end of the year is just turning us all into giant jerkfaces.

(See, you can tell I’m working really hard on being gentler and kinder because I said “jerkfaces” instead of “raging assholes.” I am so proud of me! I mean, I was until I pointed out… oh, crap. Nevermind.)

Even Hippie School—bastion of love and light and kindness—seems to be floundering in a bit of less-than-lovely behavior, no doubt brought on by that osmosis that happens between stressed-out parents and their kids. And I am less than proud of my latest approach to this, which is more or less to look my child in the eye while he’s complaining about someone else and say, “Stop. STOP. Ask yourself: ‘Am I being a jerk right now? REGARDLESS OF THE JERKINESS OF ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ STOP IT.” (more…)

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Comments { 31 }
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