Just to say hi, and that I'm still alive (now with hosting house #2 to give the family I was staying with a break), and that I still hate this shit. I wrote here a long paragraph on how much I hate this shit, but I apparently hate it so much that I lost all coherence mid writing and it became a long incoherent rant. So that's how things are.

Also, happy birthdays, and good news~ma all around. Love you all.

it became a long incoherent rant

I hope venting a long rant helped, regardless of its level of coherency.

I wouldn't mind going to lectures and learning new stuff, but I'm never writing papers or taking tests again. I still have nightmares about papers being overdue or failing to complete incompletes.

I hope venting a long rant helped, regardless of its level of coherency.

Actions, my friend. Actions are the only thing that truly helps, so checking in here helps.

Always helps on this side to see you checking in, Shir.

An arrangement has been made for my brother's granddaughter to move in with her paternal grandparents. That has to be a better situation than living in an adult community bored out of her mind. Of course, she moved in with her maternal grandparents because living with her parents was impossible; now she is moving again because the grandparents are proving to be just as difficult. I feel bad for my brother because he will be heartbroken. I don't know what or how much they have told him. I'll be over there to visit him in the hospital tomorrow.

Shir, my rants get better. Not sure that really helps, though. If I could just study without worrying about it, I'd find out if an MFA would really make me a better writer or not.(But if it's not, special to do that, would people still make the connections that are the point to those things?)

Glad for your check-in, Shir. Hard to believe it was just a year ago and change that I was showing you around San Francisco.

Always good to see your pixels, Shir

Y'all. I get promotional emails from some of our brands, and the one I just got for our highest end way-too-expensive-for-me cookware features an influencer using a skillet to cook on a grill. I can't tell exactly what they are cooking - maybe really big scallops, or some sort of patty? But instead of putting them directly on the grill above the nice bed of coals they have going, they have them in a skillet, and the skillet on the grill. WHY?!?! This is a $300 dollar skillet, being used for something that requires no skillet at all.

I am appalled. This is way worse than using a hammock frame.

Love you too, Shir. Remembering that hug last year always makes me smile. Thank you.

Hey All! I have no idea how I got so far behind again, but here I am, caught up at last! Far too much to Meara, so I send general vibes to all of you who mean so much to me.

Since I usually take a day or two off for my birthday, and my company started giving us Juneteenth as a holiday last year, I decided that I deserve a 5-day weekend. And once I decided that, I decided I wanted to do something with the time rather than just slounge around the house on a 5-day staycation. So I recruited one of my girlfriends for a girls trip/road trip. We drove up to San Simeon with stops in downtown LA (at the Last Bookstore) and Hollywood (to replace my "Hollywood Princess" snowglobe- what can I say, it has a crown!). We went to Hearst Castle today, and we're squeezing in a quick run over to Solvang. We're heading back south tomorrow with several tentative stops and staying in Santa Barbara overnight and back to San Diego on Sunday. Very fun and quirky trip so far (just like us!)