Since I haven’t been around here much, I thought it may be useful to catch you all up on some goings on for the last few months. I’m inventing a new thing called Bullet Blogging which I think is like bullet journaling but I’m not really sure because I’ve only heard the phrase but don’t really know what it is. Also on the list of new phrases I am unfamiliar with? Yacht rock. Do y’all know this one? Help me feel less lame and tell me you don’t.
(Also, do you know there is still Boston Market? How is this possible? Does anyone you know eat at Boston Market? I need answers. I’m dumbfounded.)
This is gonna be a weird one, in case you couldn’t already tell. Put on your seatbelts.
Smitty and I moved into a new house and I’m ready to sign the petition to rid the world of all pedestal sinks. I’m certain the previous owner went to the pedestal sink store and said, “you know how it’s nearly impossible to set anything on a pedestal sink? Do you have any varieties with ALL ROUNDED EDGES so there in no chance that ANYTHING EVER can be set on it? Because don’t we all really want EVERYTHING to end up on the bathroom floor at some point?”
Maggie asked me on Smitty’s birthday what’s my favorite thing about him and I thought for a long while, then went into detail about how he’s always excited to try new things, even if he may look silly or not win. And how he takes everyone at face value because with him, you get what you see so he believes everyone’s that way. But really? It’s this: (as we’re getting ready for date night) me from the other room: “I’m not wearing any makeup!” him: “Great, neither am I!” or me: “what is this goo on the sliding glass door?” him: “Dunno, but those little black dots were moving around so I sprayed it with brake fluid. Not moving anymore.” (honorable mention: I bought him a value size BAG of Fruity Pebbles today to try and keep up with his habit. Apparently THIS is 41. And this leads nicely into my next bullet…)
Food is my love language and I am STRUGG-A-LING because I think it’s a dying language. A newer friend smiled (and tried to hide her fascination) recently and said, “I love how much you love food”. I believe this was after one of my long winded praise poems about nachos or donuts or some other delightful object of my affection. But seriously, when cooking/baking/gifting delicious foods is how you show love and EVERYONE is on some restricted diet of some variety, life is sad and my heart hurts.
I mostly stay out of politics here at Milagro, but with the things going down lately (in Charlottesville and STL and with this piece in the Star, which is where I discovered the Yacht Rock term) I had this thought: It’s really really easy to condemn white supremacists (unless you’re the president, apparently, but he sets a pretty low bar…so maybe let’s not use his bar?) but it’s REALLY REALLY HARD to identify the parts of culture in which I participate (and therefore propagate) with my attention and dollars which are NOT AT ALL good for me/us/society/culture. Because here’s the thing about culture: we create it, either intentionally by what we pay money and attention to or passively by what we allow. And here’s the other thing about culture: while it seems impossible to change, it really isn’t. Just ask the people at La Croix who’ve sold a drink since the 1980’s that no one drank but has now become the trendiest trend of all trends. (Can anyone fill me in on how this happened? The sociologist in me needs to get to the bottom of it.) (Also, I just covered Charlottesville, Trump, and La Croix in one paragraph. I warned you, didn’t I?)
If you want to start a fiery (not heated or angry, but spirited) conversation among four smart, successful 40-something women, bring up the topic of using hair color to cover gray. Someone will use the phrase “easy for you to say” (ie – “you don’t HAVE to color your hair to avoid BEING COMPLETELY GRAY AT 40”) which dovetails into a mascara conversation and “easy for you to say” (ie – “you don’t have blonde hair and blonde eyebrows and blonde eyelashes which all make it look LIKE YOU HAVE NO EYES if you’re not wearing mascara”) (that one was me, if you couldn’t guess).If you’d like to test my social analyzing skills and have me tie those last two bullets together, ask me sometime to draw my parallels between gangster rap and the beauty industry. That’s a superfun convo I love to have.
And now, I am officially spent. And I didn’t even touch on fun things like the email accusing me of poisoning you all with my choice of essential oil vendors, or the gal who came into Milagro and was confused that we didn’t sell pH adjusting products (like for pools and hottubs), or the stories about our recent process of changing internet providers and getting new computer hardware that’s compatible with our unbelievably antiquated spa software.
I promise to stay up-to-date better from here on out so you don’t have to endure brain dumps like this one.
You’re welcome.