This morning I was sitting out back thinking

-How fucking great it is to have the ability on a work day to sit out back and think with a cup of coffee instead of rushing out the door like a fucking crazy person.

-Mae makes a an awful keening sound that sounds distinctly human and is very jolting. 

-About my BFF Michelle, who celebrates her birthday today. When I talk about the people who have seen the literal worst moments of my life and never looked away but instead either sat beside me in my pain or grief or rage, or helped me figure it out, she is at the top of that list. It's funny how life brings you people that you need. We met about/over 18 years ago now at the Hulmeville because she was dating a friend of ours and bonded over soap operas of all things. Life went on and she didn't keep him, but I kept her and will forever. I keep all the real ones who see me and let me see them. Everyone else falls off when they're meant to. Happy birthday Michelle!

-The glorious smell of in-season, perfectly ripe strawberries that wafts out when you open the fridge

-The comfort I get from having furniture of my grandmom's and great grandmom's

-How sad it is when people do not have true friends who really see and accept and love them 

-How fucking bizarre the concept of an influencer is, and in that same internet vein, how heavy and hard it must be for some people to have an online persona and a face to face persona and those people are not the same people. We are here to be our authentic selves in this one life, and not doing that removes authenticity, truth, and imperfect human beauty from the world. Be who you are. Everyone else is taken. 

-Summer rain rules because then you don't have to water plants. 

-Dogs have become clingy monsters in pandemic life. I will never be sad to have all the extra time with Gus as his body breaks down and he approaches 16. 

-I put two seriously late birthday cards for the Kims, Michelle's card, and my bonus grandfather's Father's Day card in the mailbox today. Do mail people still take letters to be mailed from the box or do they have to go in the actual mailbox on the street? Update, I know you were on the edge of your seat: my mail person took them

-Birds are pushy squatters. 

-Actually flexing flex time is a whole new world. Gus was up shitting at 5 am and I had been up until midnight reading. I got all the dogs up and out, fed them, pulled the sheets off the bed, gathered towels throughout the house, threw a load of laundry in, got a bin out as the trash still hadn't been picked up, and went back to sleep for an hour. I started work at 9:30 and will just extend. I didn't stress or run around and it is such a nicer way to exist. We've always had flex time, but it's harder to flex when you are commuting and dealing with train schedules. They start to suck after the 6 pm hour.

-I am up to my armpits in deadline driven work for the next month.

-I will never understand the unwillingness to get a vaccine in a global pandemic especially when the excuse is big pharma or govt using you as research. What the fuck do you think they're doing through the device you're reading this on right now? Or because you don't want that in your body, but you ingest chemicals through your skin, mouth, and nose in the products you use on your body/face/hair, how you care for your lawn, what you eat and drink, what comes through your pipes. Man alive.

-Life has become a series of the eating same foods over and over prepared just a bit differently. I'm making greek orzo salad today.

-I have to start stretching. I think this all the time but I have to.

-There is a shit load of organizing, furniture moving, and painting to be done in the Philly house. I am a broken record with this as I swear projects lag here like they don't at the shore, probably because they can't at the shore due to it being a vacation rental for some of the year. We're in a holding pattern for a while as everything is off the walls through quite a few rooms as we paint and move stuff around. The gallery wall alone going up the steps has so much on it. One of the bedrooms is basically empty as we wait to paint it. We're living among piles. I want to throw it all out.

Love, Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy and also me.