I had a good Thanksgiving. Because I passed my 90-day mark at my job last week, I got paid for Thanksgiving AND I got a floating holiday!
On Thanksgiving, my family (including Neal and his mom) came down to Springfield and we had dinner at Village Inn. I worked at Village Inn last year for Thanksgiving, and I know they did a good Thanksgiving meal! I forgot it came with a free piece of pumpkin pie.
Then we had Thanksgiving part 2 over at Neal’s house with his family. It was a good time. My mom and Neal’s mom, Brenda, talked while me, Neal, Neal’s uncle Keith, aunt Sheri, and cousin Madison all watched Christmas Vacation, which is a family tradition for them. It used to be a tradition for me and my Grandma Barb, but it fizzled out over time and the tradition stopped. It was a good time.
I spent Thanksgiving weekend with mom and Neal in St. Louis and we hit up some cool local spots around Kirkwood (and some Jack n the Box for Neal). It surprised me to realize how much I miss Kirkwood and the general St. Louis area.
We took Neal to Strange Donuts since his old job was a similar-style donut shop in Springfield.Iconic Amoco sign close to Forest Park in St. Louis
My mom is doing well, considering the news she got last month. We talked a lot about her cancer. Mainly we talked about her cancer of the peritoneum which is secondary to her colon cancer. Peritoneal cancer is terminal and its not an easy death. Mom and I talked candidly about what to do after she passes on. We also argued, got mad at each other, made up, cuddled, laughed. So we acted like normal mother and daughter. We’re going to Florida for Christmas to see my mom’s family. Eleven days on the beach will do both of us a lot of good. I got Mom a good Christmas gift that I know she’ll love.
Next month Neal and I celebrate our one-year anniversary. I can’t believe how much time has passed. I’ve never celebrated an anniversary before and boy, what a year it’s been! Neal has been an amazing partner to me. He’s been so supportive and patient with me, especially with my mom’s health issues. Stress/depression/grief can really affect your memory and it absolutely has affected mine. Neal will sweetly remind me of things I’ve forgotten or will listen to me as I tell him a story I’ve already told him. He’s a good egg. I’m excited to be celebrating a year of doing life with him. I hope it’s the first of many years with him.
I recently picked up one of my writing prompt books off of my book shelf and in the hopes that it would stimulate my writing more. This prompt in particular really struck out at me today:
How do you cheer someone up? Describe a time when you had to do so.
On Friday night, my mom and I were FaceTiming each other. She called me to give me an update about her appointment with the Siteman Cancer Center. Two weeks ago, my mother received the news that her cancer was not going to go into remission. On top of that, they predicted her lifespan would be no more than 24 months. It was a huge blow to both of us because it had really seemed like her cancer count was going down. Despite her condition, she looks great and finds a way to go work out and get stuff done while she finishes up her last semester of school. When she shared the news to her friends and teachers at school, someone had suggested Siteman and she made an appointment for a second opinion and to find out more about immunotherapy.
Unfortunately, the news wasn’t good. The doctors at Siteman agreed with both Mercy’s conclusion that nothing else could be done regarding my mother’s condition. Furthermore, she currently is not a candidate for immunotherapy. It was a another blow to hear this news. It’s harder to hear news like this from my mom as she tried to hold back her tears.
So I do the one thing I know how to do: I make her laugh. I rattle off some goofy stand up joke premises and silly one-liners. It feels good to make her laugh. When we finally end our conversation, I know she’s feeling a little bit better. Of course it’s temporary, but for a moment, she got a chance to laugh and that makes me happy I was able to provide that for her.
I’m looking forward to seeing her on Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving weekend. We’re making plans for next year as well. Beale Street Music Festival 2019 in Memphis is definitely on that list.
My mom is amazing. She’s refused to let this stop her. She’s got shit to do, and she’s gonna do whatever she can to get as much done. So far she’s been proceeding without anger. It doesn’t mean she’s not without sadness and sorrow about it all, but she’s currently without anger.
If you’re reading this and would like to help my mother out, I started a GoFundMe for her back in May. I included the link below.
Today I celebrated 16 weeks of sobriety. That’s nearly four months. That’s the equivalent to a fall semester of college. It hasn’t been easy in the slightest. But it gets easier whenever I think about what I’ve achieved in that length of time. I feel clearer. I’ve been creating more. I’ve been reading more books. I’m busy but I still find time for people in my life and support their art too. And I’m coping better. I heard some rough news about my mom on Friday and while I am still experiencing waves of emotion about it, I’ve been taking it in stride and honoring my feelings and allowing myself to feel my emotion.
I’m grateful for the support I’ve received from all my friends during the last (almost) six months in terms of the issues with my mom and with my sobriety. Most importantly, I’m proud of myself and I’m proud of anyone else who’s gone sober this year. If you’re reading this and you’re struggling with sobriety, just remember to take it one day at a time. You got this!
– Tess
A close-up photo of a tree I took using the HujiCam app
A few months ago, I was hanging with friends and we watched Scream. For me, this was my first time watching Scream. I know, I know, I know. This movie is over 20 years old and I only watched it for the first time earlier this year. Truth be told, I’m not savvy when it comes to the horror genre. Scream was excellent. Very meta (“Turn around Jamie!”) and overall had a good plot. Because of my lack of familiarity with the horror genre, the twist was a big surprise to me. It got me thinking: there’s a whole genre of movies out there that I have never seen. Some movies are iconic and classics. I feel like I’ve been missing out on so much.
So I decided to make a new project for myself. Starting on August 21st (the day of the eclipse here in Missouri), I plan on launching Horror Newbie: 30 Days of Horror. I cultivated a list of over 100 recommendations by asking various friends. The goal is to watch at least one horror movie a day. Every day I will make an effort to discuss about the movie or movies I watched that day.
It appears that the overall theme for November is heartbreak. I was grappling with quite a bit of it with the election. But as of last Tuesday, I’m now experiencing a loss of a friendship. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost a friend, but it doesn’t hurt any less. For me, friend breakups are very similar to romantic break ups: I’m basically out of commission for a few days and I feel tremendously sad and hurt which always comes out angry.
I’m a big fan of Marc Maron and I sporadically watch his show “Maron” on Netflix when I have the time. I say sporadically because I occasionally have to stop watching the show due to its extremely reliability to my life. I am also a comic and a writer with three cats and I also view the world in a strange, over-analytical way. In the pilot episode of “Maron” there was quote Marc makes that really resonated with me:
“But I know one thing about me: If I am sad and its in public, it’s not gonna come out sadness. It’s just gonna come out anger.”
Why did this line resonate with me? Because it’s exactly how I am. Anger is way more productive than sadness. For me, sadness is debilitating. I don’t have an appetite, I just wanna sleep, my eyes get all pink and red (which makes it difficult when I cry at work which I have done more than an employee should due to my panic attacks). Sadness decreases my productivity and makes me a generally sad and useless individual.
The other reoccurring problem with friend breakups are the other friend breakups you end up reliving. You think about the time in April when one of your friends messaged you on Facebook and proceeded to call you “a total bitch,” “delusional,” “a right asshole” and other names of that nature. You think about the friend you had confronted a year ago and they screamed in your face, telling you to go fuck yourself, and cut you out of their life. You think about how in seventh grade you had a friend who didn’t invite you to a ski trip because “my mom said you don’t have enough money.” It hurts. It really does. It mainly hurts as a writer. As an introvert, being alone doesn’t hurt me. I’m really, really good at being alone. I sometimes wonder if I’m too good at it and that it hinders me from knowing how to properly function with someone else in my life.
Being alone as a writer hurts because you lose your muse. You have to find a new source of inspiration, a new person who alights the flame of passion to create. I recently came across a quote that summarizes a writer’s love perfectly: “If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.” I think this quote applies to both romantic and platonic love. I’ve been equally devastated by the endings of both.
When it all comes down to it, love is just too intriguing and too powerful to not risk hurting yourself for. It’s why we keep falling for it. We keep hoping the next time will be better but it just turns out the same way. The best thing you can do it just brush it off and move on with your life. Learn to show your best sides to everyone and not just the people you end up loving who didn’t deserve your love to begin with. And don’t let someone waste you time. If someone tells you no, look beyond their bullshit excuses and don’t wait for them to come around because guess what? They will never come around. They will continue to waste your time as long as you let them. And your time is too precious to waste. You have more important things to do with your life than pine for someone who never was honest with you or was ever worth it in the first place.
We were all put on this earth to do some kickass shit, don’t waste it on someone who wears the merit-less crown you gave them.
My feature image comes from the Possom Trot Auction House in Seale, Alabama. I was there earlier this month for my uncle, John Erickson, and his marriage to Joyce Webster. It was a great time!
It’s been a tremendously exhausting for the last week since the election.
Am I still angry? Yes. It hurts to see an uprise of displayed racism and exhibited harassment in light of a Trump victory. It also hurts and angers me to see people argue that “both sides have it hard right now” and hearing people spout some form of a “sit down and shut up” mentality.
I recently had a friend who received a Facebook message from some man she didn’t know. The message said, and I quote, “Fuck you you motherfucking piece of shit! Suck a dick and die! Trump won bitch!”
I shared the post to my Facebook wall stressing the importance of being kinder to one another. The step-mother of a friend of mine commented on my post that “both sides” had been bad. It was a minimization of a greater issue. It was a dismissal to the woman who had been harassed with no provocation. It was the condoning of a man displaying unnecessary aggression toward a woman just simply because he could. Her comment made me angry. I wanted to say so many things in response. Thoughtful things. Things that would hurt her so much to jar her into an intense thought process and self-reflection. The thought running through my mind: With her words, she chose to hurt a sister to her gender and biological sex.
I took a breath to stabilize myself. At the time I read this, I was in a karaoke pub. I had been trying to lift spirits by encouraging people to go do karaoke with myself and a handful of friends. And by a “handful,” I mean only four (including me) showed up. But overall, we all felt a little better after belting some tunes. But I still felt like I needed to respond. I couldn’t ignore the comment. So I responded in the most benign way: Ok.
My friend’s step-mom ended up deleting her comment due to not liking the way that it read and she would never cast that type of light out there. She also made the point to tell me she thought me lovely. I told thank you and left it at that.
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I am finding that it’s hard to really forgive people who condone President-Elect Trump’s campaign platform and actively choose to overlook his racism, extreme Islamophobia, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, general ignorance, and acceptance of sexual assault. And I’m finding it genuinely horrifying how people are so quick to see the “good” things Trump’s done and be willing to give him a chance. Sure, he won’t reverse same sex marriage for now. But what about one or two years from now? I wouldn’t expect that to remain. I feel as if we all, as a collective whole, should wait for the other shoe to drop and never allow ourselves to become complacent. To not believe the news without fact checking or getting our news from a reliable source and doing our due diligence. I, for one, have decided to forgo most U.S. based news sources and will get my news primarily from BBC News because they offer both U.S. and other world news. It’s primarily paid for by British citizens, but online visitors outside the U.K. see some advertisements. I plan on making a donation to BBC for either the holidays or my birthday.
The announcement of Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief strategist is just mind-boggling given his violent history and white supremacist ideas. It baffles me that respected newspapers like The Wallstreet Journal mention him as “alt-right,” which really downplays his beliefs and past inflammatory comments he’s made.
We should all be cautious as it gets closer and closer to Trump’s inauguration. We should remember to be diligent. Examine our friends’ words and actions and also examine their negative space of their actions and words. What I mean by that is if you see someone not doing something when they should, call them out on it. If they are not saying the things they should, call them out on that. Don’t be an accomplice to hate speech and be a passive participant to hate crimes by not doing something.
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An Important Note
My not voting for Trump did not, does not, and never will mean that I have no respect for the military. Quite the contrary, I actually have a lot of respect for our military. I have had two members of my family in the military (one Navy, one Marines). I deeply care for and respect our current, veteran, and fallen soldiers for the sacrifices they have made in keeping the U.S. safe. I am thankful for all that our military has done for us and that gratitude will not falter or change anytime soon. If you are reading this and you have been or are currently involved with our military, thank you so much for serving our country. And I am sorry if you think that a vote against Donald Trump or our peaceful protests are seen as disrespectful. A lot of us protest (not riot) because we are scared that the freedoms you fought for us to have might be taken away.
Our quality of life is in jepardary.
Our rights and our ability to speak up are in jepardary.
Our loved ones are in jepardary.And people are responding to our fear by telling us to “get over it” and calling us “crybabies.”
The only thing those things have been successful in doing is fanning the fire of our fear.
If y’all can even begin to think of where we’re coming from, how can we ever unite as one nation? Being empathetic doesn’t mean you have to bend over backwards and go against what you believe in. Being able to understand where someone is coming from really helps c0nnecting you to just that person and that unique connection is solely between you two and you will never experience anything just like that connection again.
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If you are interested in getting involved with your community, contact your local nonprofits. They are always in need of help. Also explore different news sources like BBC or The Economist, both were considered to be the “least biased” by Business Insider.
While I am not a particularly religious person, it’s important to remind people of Matthew 7:12 in the Bible:
“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12 – NLT – Bible Gateway)
If you are struggling with anxiety, watch this video and it will make you feel calmer. ❤
If you fell down a rabbit hole,what do you think you’d find?
Years ago, my mom asked me to go to the park with my sister. The park wasn’t far from our house, so my sister and I rode our bikes over and played hide and seek. I looked for somewhere to hide and saw a big tree with roots that I could crawl under. I crawled and crawled, until…I fell into darkness and landed on cold floor. I was in a cage with strange-looking beings staring at me. They had green skin and black eyes. I couldn’t understand their words. They watched me like I was an animal in a zoo.
I’ll gladly say it: I hate Tinder. I hate online dating in general, but I really hate Tinder. Major kudos to the lucky ducks who have successfully found love in the internet cesspool of left and right swiping because I tend to find more creeps and disgusting vulgarities than actual guys interested in something substantial. I rarely look at Tinder these days and when I do, I usually regret it. Today was one of those days.
I remembered a conversation I had with my friend Sarah. When I went to Chicago last year, she was the one who showed me around town. One of the times she was visiting home in good ol’ Springfield, we were at the local donut shop and we thought about how funny it would be to write a musical about Tinder. After checking my Tinder today and being thoroughly disappointed, I made this:
Still reading: 11/22/63 by Stephen King Almost finished reading: Attempting Normal by Marc Maron (I recommend it in audiobook form)
Think about your day so far. What’s the highlight at this point?
Getting a chance to see and be with my family.
What’s the low point?
Besides being too full to eat more food, my low point would be not being able to spend my Thansgiving with my family and my friend family in Springfield (framily?) at the same time. How lucky am I for that being the worst part of my holiday?
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope this day of gratitude was good to you.
What About The Alchemy? 