Literally No Idea What I am Doing

 This post is not about marriage. Very few things of the last month have lined up with my expectations for this period of my life. And before the chorus of "well duhs" come in, hold on a sec and listen to my rambling.  I didn't expect to be in my mid-thirties. I didn't expect to meet on an app. I didn't expect to be in Kansas. I didn't expect my dad to be dead. And I didn't expect that my sister would hate me. Hah! You thought this was going to be another post about my dead dad, didn't you? Nope, sucker. It's a totally different emotional and depressing familial scenario. I mean the dead dad thing still sucks, don't get me wrong. Especially at this time of year. But this is a whole separate kettle of onions, can of worms, giant stinky mess. I know that just by writing this (and inevitably posting on my Facebook), there's a chance my sister will see this and get extremely angry and make yet another post of her own on FB talking about how wro...

Ok, so first of all, no, not all of these posts will be about my dead dad. This is just a special sort of weekend and it coincided with my idea to start blogging more, so here we are. Second of all, yes, this is supposed to be about stuff I cooked and/or baked and I did NOT make ice cream, but hey, my blog my rules. See above for special weekend. This is also a sort of filler post until my next one, as the food I am making for that takes a while and won't be ready until tomorrow at earliest. That out of the way....here is a picture of the completed cinnamon rolls from before that I didn't add to my last post because it ended kinda abruptly: They were as ugly as sin...namon. See what I did there? I will see myself out... Grief is real weird, y'all. Also kinda dumb, if I am honest. Did I say that before? Don't know, and too lazy to re-read what I wrote. But really, it is dumb and weird. Earlier this week, while at work, I became overwhelmingly sad. For no...

As I saw more and more of my friends joining their voices in the "me too" trend, I couldn't help but think back and wonder if I needed to join them. At first, I brushed it off. I'd never been sexually harassed or assaulted. I don't get guys leering at me or catcalling or bugging me online. Sure, I'd had some creeps when I attempted OKCupid, but nothing really that could be considered a personal attack. Just general skeeviness. It kept nagging at me. There was something. Something that I dismissed at first. It wasn't harassment. It wasn't assault. It just wasn't. It wasn't even physical. But it was abuse. It was slow. So gradual that I didn't even realize how bad it was until too late. And although it never felt "innocent," it definitely didn't feel like it was that bad. After all, it was only over text. How could it be bad if it was only in my mind? Furthermore, it was consensual. I agreed, I initiated, I kept coming bac...

It started with four songs. Over the Hills and Far Away, Wanderlust, Nemo, and Sleeping Sun, mistakenly titled “Eclipse” on the file I had. I cannot tell you exactly when I received them, or the name of the person who gave them to me. All I remember is that it was 2005 (possibly 2004), and it was a friend of a friend I met on Neopets. Wanderlust especially intrigued me because I was deeply into Dragonlance and it reminded me of kender. Over the Hills and Far Away was cool. I have always wanted to write a short story about the plot of that song. I want to say my version of Sleeping Sun was the 2005 version, but I am not sure. Either way, I adored it. I still think of it as “Eclipse” sometimes because for the longest time, that is what I thought it was called. But of course, Nemo is what won my heart. How many of us say the same? There is just something about that song that draws you in. You get lost in it, enfolded in its haunting beauty. It is easily Tarja’s best song and one ...

I can't be mad at my dad for choosing to die. My dad was diagnosed in late July with CNS lymphoma. He had a massive tumor in his frontal lobe and surgery was only able to remove part of it. It was the first day of what was supposed to be a vacation in upstate New York. We had noticed him acting a little strangely the week before, but he stubbornly refused to go to a doctor until we were in Syracuse. I remember when they said he had a brain tumor the floor fell from beneath my feet and I felt cold all over. It couldn't be happening. He had his surgery in New York and we left for home (Kansas, driving) a few days later. He was back in the hospital almost as soon as we got home. He had an infection, which necessitated more surgery. But he also had diabetes, so they had to get his blood sugar under control before they could clear the infection. He was in the ICU for almost a week I believe, mostly not responsive. After another week or so he was transferred to a different hos...

How appropriate my last blog post was about my dad as well and what a great father he is… My dad has cancer. My dad has cancer . My dad has cancer. My dad has cancer. I keep repeating it to myself over and over and over again, hoping it’ll help me believe it. It doesn’t. I have told this story a dozen times already, but I want to write it down once more. Two months ago, everything was great. I had a boyfriend whom I loved, I was getting ready to go on a trip to my favorite place (Syracuse, NY) with my family, my sister had just adopted an adorable puppy, and my depression was more under control than it had been my whole life. Things were sailing along. My sister mentioned my dad was acting sort of strange, but we brushed it off because he seemed mostly fine. He had just been told he had a sinus infection, so we figured that was making him a little tired and it explained his memory problems and just slightly off behavior. Four days later, whe...

A friend and I were texting each other the other night and I told her how jealous I was that she works as a freelance writer and has written novels (or at least a good chunk of a novel) and that she gets to spend so much time working on her craft. This is nothing unusual for me; I spend a lot of my time marveling and admiring my friends and how awesome they are. I’ve told them this enough to probably make them plenty uncomfortable. Like so many of my feelings, it is perhaps best depicted in this comic from Girls With Slingshots (link) THIS IS HOW I FEEL 80% OF THE TIME ABOUT MY FRIENDS. *cough* ahem But really, they are that amazing. At least in my eyes. I have friends who are writers, voice actors, photographers, doctors, etc. They are doing what they love and they are doing it well. I don’t mind it. I love that they are happy. They’re all beautiful amazing people and I love them so much. But this has nothing to do with writing, except that their wonderful accomplish...

So...I think it's working? Here is a picture of my skin this morning after I had done the routine next to the one from the first day. I don't know why the lighting is so orangey on the one from today. You can clearly see that there is significant less redness on my face today than there was on Tuesday. It is also much less irritated and sensitive to the touch. There even seems to be a little bit of brightness to my skin that isn't oiliness. You can also clearly see that I don't know how to make faces when taking a picture. Some miscellaneous thoughts I had about the products the last few days: --I cannot stress how concentrated the cleanser is. It only takes a tiny amount to foam up my whole face --The aloe does smell a little weird, kind of....I don't know. I can't explain it. But it's not a terrible smell and it doesn't linger --All of the products are incredibly light. Especially the peeling gel. It hardly feels like I am putting anythi...

Another Side of Being Female This is something I have wanted to talk about for a while, but a recent post I read helped me decide to sit down and share my feelings. This is not a pity party or an attempt to steal the spotlight and honestly I don’t even care if it gets any attention whatsoever. I just want my voice out there, even if it is lost in the crowd. I have seen many beautifully written and heart-wrenching pieces detailing how difficult it can be as a female and dealing with daily sexual harassment and/or abuse their whole lives. I do not in any way intend to take anything from those stories because those are real people who were really hurt, abused, offended, and degraded. Their emotions are 100% valid and I wish everyone had more awareness of the kind of behavior those brave women have endured and overcome. All I want is to provide perspective from my own experiences, which are quite different from theirs but I feel is underrepresented as far as I have seen, and just ...

Depression is not for the faint of heart. A week ago, I was officially diagnosed with major depressive disorder, also known as major depression or clinical depression. This was not exactly a surprise. I have dealt with depression for as long as I can remember. But this was the first time I was actually told it was actually a big deal. I assumed it was the “normal” kind of depression, whatever that is. I just thought that it wasn’t too serious since I have never tried to kill myself or anything. But it is serious. I am slowly coming to realize how much my illness affects my life. From what I remember/understand that my new therapist told me, a big part of depression is an incorrect “wiring” in my brain, causing miscommunication and extreme emotional reactions to things. He told me that a lot of our thinking is formed by the time we’re seven, so if something taught us then to react a certain way, it’s likely that will stick with us for the rest of our lives. Another thing that a...

Look, I know it’s pretty cheesy to post a thing reflecting on the past year at the end of December. But I keep seeing all these things on Facebook that supposedly summarize what happened and they all say “It's been a great year! Thanks for being a part of it.” They wanted me to do one too, but my Facebook posts would hardly be an accurate representation of my life in 2014. Life is so much more than what I post on Facebook, partly because I don’t really think anyone cares and also I don’t post everything I’m feeling all the time.  And, also, there were barely any people involved in my 2014 who are on Facebook. I have barely over 100 friends on Facebook, and of those, maybe a quarter of them post stuff semi-regularly. And of those people, probably ten of them are active on my Facebook posts. I probably have more active followers on Tumblr than I do Facebook (this is a lie. Maybe five people reblog my stuff on Tumblr. But I love those guys, especially if any of them are readin...