If you found yourself in Oz, what would you do different than Dorothy?

 Well, let's start with the fact that I'm a grown ass woman with few qualms about hurting some fools that attack me with lethal intent. I would be strapping that Tin Man's axe onto my belt. If we're talking the real me, like the right now today me...I wouldn't have a dog.

Because I don't have a dog. And Dorothy had a dog, what did that dog eat, anyway? If I had a dog it would be a proper sized dog, not some ball of fluff that constantly needs carrying. But I don't have a dog, so....

So. Here I am in Oz. I...would want to get straight to the point. I'd want a map and to know where all the important landmarks are and can I have a water canteen and a backpack and what kind of wild animals will I find and bugs and ....

I think I would be better equipped than Dorothy, you know her being a little girl and all. I probably would not have made any friends because I'd be all business and trying to get my ass out of there. But...honestly, if I lived in Kansas and was transported to Oz...I might just want to stay in Oz. After all, Dorothy was a little girl. I'm a grown woman. But I have kids, I'd want to get back to my kids. They're grown so they don't need constant looking after but...hm...

What about a story about Dorothy's grown kids coming to look for her. Like, she wandered off again and they went out and looked for her.

Like...she has a mood disorder. And her kids have to come find her. And ...

Hm.

Even when you don't feel like writing, write anyway...Design a cocktail or drink after yourself.

 From "500 Writing Prompts" :

You have to design a cocktail or drink after yourself (alcoholic or non-alcoholic). What ingredients are in it and what will you name it?

Honestly, some of these prompts...Design and name a drink after myself? This sounds more like a ridiculous party game, not a writing prompt. Okay, my goal is to do the prompt no matter how terrible or inane, to teach  to write even when we don't feel like writing.

Not sure how I want to approach this. Do I mess about with things I actually really enjoy drinking, like tea and coconut and vodka (not all together...I don't drink those all together) or do I attempt to choose things that represent me, or my perspective of myself, that I may not like but I feel represent me?

My first thought is coconut and ginger. I really like coconut and ginger right now, but really is that something that represents me? How about coconut ginger chai. Well, do you need to put ginger on there if it's chai? Chai has ginger in it already, doesn't it? And I don't mean the super sweet chai you get at coffee shops and such, I don't like that. I like chai tea bags and milk. Chai doesn't come with coconut flavoring but I could add coconut milk. And...what's the yellow stuff, not saffron...turmeric.

Tumeric-it's related to ginger!

I'm not a yellow kind of person, though, except as an accent color. Yellow is an excellent accent to purple, which is my favorite color. But I don't want to make a purple drink.

PURPLE!!!
Photo by Jonny Lew from Pexels

Okay, enough fooling around with photos. I really like adding photos to my posts. I don't a wall of text, it's boring. But sometimes I go a bit overboard with the photos.

Back to the drink. I choose lime juice, raw honey, and cayenne pepper. This past April (of 2020) I was at my sister's house (well, her apartment) in San Antonio, Texas. I was staying for a month because she was out of the country. I couldn't leave, I was taking care of her cats, but I had a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE allergy attack. It was a combination of my seasonal allergies being in overdrive because of the Texas yellow pines which, because I've never had exposure to them, hit me extra hard, and my sister's cats. I have my own cats but I've developed immunity to them. But sister's cats, not so much. The two combined really hit me hard, I was wheezing and sneezing and coughing and spent many days in bed doped up on several kinds of antihistamines. One thing that helped calm things down a bit was a combination of fresh squeezed lime juice which I heated in the microwave, raw honey, and cayenne pepper.

Even native Texans fall to Cedar Fever,
 so me being from Illinois...

Not a miracle cure, but it sure helped for a few days. That and sleeping in the bathtub. Because it was the easiest place to wipe down completely and the shower curtain kept out a lot of the animal dander and pollen and it was the furthest place in the apartment away from the doors. You know, furthest from where pollen could get in.

Eventually I went to the ER, but that's a long(er) story, this ain't supposed to be about that. I felt like I needed to explain the backstory. I don't know why, I only really need to explain the ingredients.

Honestly, I don't know why I put those three things together. Lime has vitamin C and my sister happened to have some limes on the counter. I really like limes, so I squeezed those into a little bowl and heated it in the microwave, because the heat would feel really good for my raw throat. I think I add the limes because they juice helps thicken the mucus so I could cough it up. Then I stirred in a spoonful of crystallized raw honey. I love crystallized honey, I like feeling the crystals on my tongue. Yeah, that's weird. And I also don't know why I chose to add cayenne pepper. I was going to put in regular pepper, but I saw some cayenne pepper in the cabinet so I grabbed that, works better. I put a lot in, but I didn't measure it. Just...a lot. Maybe a teaspoon? I think I add it because it can help clear your sinuses and open up your breathing passages. My throat felt like it was closing up.

It really helped for a while, enough to allow me to breath for a couple of hours. At that point my entire world had shrunk to just trying to breathe freely, so finally being able to for a couple of hours was such a relief. I had to sip it of course, can't knock back that amount of cayenne pepper without choking.

So, that's my drink. Fresh squeezed lime juice heated, crystallized raw honey, and cayenne pepper. Heat the lime juice first, by itself, before you add the honey and cayenne pepper.

Why would I choose this drink? Because it made me feel smart, figuring out this combination. And because I am acidic but interesting, like lime. I'm hot-tempered and spicy, like cayenne pepper, and....crystalline? Like raw honey? Three slightly unusual things combined for an unusual taste and also it helps you breathe.

What would I name it? Just Breathe. That's what I'll name it. Just Breathe.

And....add vodka sometimes. Sometimes.

If you could indulge in anything without consequence, what would it be?

 So little time left in the day. Serves me right for dawdling. In just (checking...) three hours and forty minutes I need to be leaving for my MA class.  We were masks in class and our contact is minimized, if you're wondering.

Here is a writing prompt from my "500 Writing Prompts" workbook. It doesn't have an author listed, just the website, on the bar code sticker on the back, Picadilly Inc. I bought it at...Half-Price Books? Or maybe Five and Below. I want to give the proper credit, but it doesn't have an author listed. 

500 Writing Prompts...using the numeral instead of writing out the number..."Five Hundred"...grinds my gears.

Prompt: If you could indulge in anything without consequence, what would it be?

Well, I'd like to be edgy and say something awful, like murder, or theft, or vandalism...but I don't usually want to do those things.

Usually.

No, it would be something I want to do on a daily basis and struggle with all the time I would really love to eat whatever the hell I wanted and not gain weight or get sick. I have issues with food (what a surprise) and comfort eating and now that I'm in menopause my metabolism is slowing down even more. So if I could avoid the consequences of weight gain and high cholesterol... I would eat so much cheesecake. Cherry cheesecake, Oreo cheesecake, lemon cheesecake, key lime cheesecake. Turtle cheesecake. And cake. German chocolate cake, red velvet cake, Devil's Food Chocolate cake, carrot cake with with walnuts, molasses spice cake, lemon cake.

I fucking love me some cake.

I would... Eat fried chicken. Battered fish and chips. Smoked salmon...lots of smoked salmon.

I would... use real cream in my coffee and real sugar in my tea. I would...I would...INDULGE.

But this is the real world, and such indulgences do have consequences and they are not small. I must accept the fact that I have a lot of difficulty moderating indulgences. So it's better to go without them. If I want to get down to fight weight I need to be firm with myself. Remind myself the long term goal is so much sweeter than the momentary pleasure of indulgence.

And then I can indulge in some sexy clothes. And by sexy I mean tough sexy, like leather and buckles and maybe a little lace thrown in...steampunk like, but not too overdone. I don't want gears for the sake of having gears, if I have gears on my outfit they'd better have a function.

So...the delayed reward is some sexy clothes, which are more fun than food, actually. I can look for clothes now even, and buy them as the End Boss reward chest.

That is...if the world hasn't go apocalyptic by then. We'll find out in (checking...) twenty days. 

Google your first name + apocalypse outfit: works for me.
found on Pinterest

Motivation...the promise of a real fight and sexy clothes is MOTIVATION. Whatever works, hm?

Once it was autumn, but ain't nobody got time for that. Just say fall, is what I say to myself.

What are we talking about today, hm? I just don't even know. It's quite late, relatively, for me to be writing. We had to go grocery shopping today and honestly it gives me anxiety in the best of times, but I'm anxious about whether or not I should stock up on food. Slowly, over the next few weeks, not in all one crazy run. Spread the crazy out, is what I'm saying. So your crazy does occur simultaneously with other people's crazy. Do your crazy beforehand, in case of post-election insanity, whether it's justifiable insanity or not. I mean...it's food. It's not like we won't use it. 

Really, let's not talk about the insanity. There's more insanity and divisive now than I've ever seen in my life. The earliest presidential election I can remember is when Carter lost to Reagan in 1980, sooooo...I was nine years old. It feels like crazy, apocalyptic times are possible. It's just too much. Let's focus elsewhere and maintain low tones.

I chipped a nail. I need to trim them and I think it's time for some glitter polish. I don't wear polish often, but when I do decide to paint them it's all about the clear glitter polish. With big pieces of glitter. FUN!

Fall 2020

Here's the maple tree in our backyard. Isn't it pretty? It's hard to tell in the picture but when the sun rises and hits it in the early morning light it looks like it's glowing. The camera doesn't really capture the true beauty. 

When I was young I preferred the word autumn for the harvest season because it was different. Fewer people used the word autumn and it felt special. The word fall felt...common. But honestly nowadays I can't be bothered to spell that out, a-u-t-u-m-n. No more pretentious fucks to give anymore.

Writing...it's habit forming. But far better for you than coffee and cigarettes.

 I'm going to try for a blog post every single day. Some days I may not have anything interesting to say. I'm trying to decide if it's better to set up the habit to write everyday even if it's boring and just filling in the five minute a day.  Or is it better to save up for the good stuff, not publish unless it's sharp and smooth. Yeah, I know those are opposites. I say what I mean.  

I don't want this to just be a journal. But some days...probably even a lot of days, I'll just be throwing out something I'm thinking about that day, or something that's annoyed me, or just a picture I took that I really like and tell stuff about that.

Like this one...it's my daughter's cat, Toby.
He has a chonk heart!

I take a lot of pictures. Occasionally they're weird, but mostly they're my cats or my garden or selfies. 

I have purple hair. That's a side note. 

I'm thinking...that the "try really, really hard to post every single day, no matter what", even if it's five minutes of stream-of-consciousness flotsam.  

Setting the habit is very important. Writing everyday will make me push myself to produce, rain, shine, flu, depression, WHATEVER. And you can always edit stuff, or use tiny parts of an idea or scene, but you can't EDIT STUFF if you're NOT PRODUCING STUFF.

True story.

Here's an elephant I drew today. You're welcome.

So, what are doing today, Zuul?

We must prepare for the coming of Gozer The Destructor. Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, the Traveller has come!

Certainly can't go out today, much too busy.  

You know, in the days of COVID-19 this old quote feels prophetic. Oh, that the Ghostbusters were here to cross the streams and blast coronavirus to oblivion. 

If only it were that easy.

Guys, please tell me you at least have a containment unit for these things...guys?
CC Commons license -- NIAID

So I posted a drawing of a raven for day 5 of October Ink Inspiration. There's too much drama --legit and otherwise-- and commercialism around the official Inktober now for my tastes, so I created my own list. 2020 doesn't need any extra drama, know what I mean? For day five I did a raven. I'd never tried drawing a raven before so I found a step-by-step tutorial, which turned out to be for digital drawing but it worked anyway, and knocked one out in about half an hour or so. Not bad. It got a lot of likes, a lot more than usual, probably for the snarky speech line I put over it, "Nevermore, bitch. Caw." And probably also because it's a raven, they're popular. But somebody asked to purchase a print!

I don't even know how to go about making a print!

Also, when I went back to look at it today after reading that, I noticed that my initials and my were directly under the bird's ...butt? Butt area? Place where the bird poop probably comes out.

I wonder how I can fix that. I wonder how people get prints made. Must research.

I did this in Paint and it was fun. I don't have any art editing software on my computer.

Fortune Cookies of My Mind

 From the workbook 500 Writing Prompts, no authors listed. I bought it at Half-Price Books. I think.

Write ten original thoughts that will be stuffed inside fortune cookies for perfect strangers to read.

You will soon come upon a surfeit of molasses.

Wait for it....
Public Domain photograph

You will soon face a long held fear and defeat it.

This is fine. Everything's fine.
Photo by Sandy Torchon from Pexels

Birds of a feather flock together--but they also fight over food. 

That was my moldy cookie, bitch!
Photo from Pexels, CC

Disappointment will visit you soon but you don't have to ask it to move in.

Here's your hat...

Wash your hands, company is coming.

I hope it's not Felicia. She's so judgy.

Color delights, find a singularity.

And if you don't know what that means I'm not telling you.
Because I don't know either.

Time flies when you don't watch the clock.

Whoosh.

When you expand your mind you can fit more differences into it.

Crazyhead Jones.

A walk around the neighborhood can set you off around the world.

Star Trekkin' across the universe,
boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse.

Weakness isn't permanent.

Round two: This time, it's personal.

Hello, and where have you been? And stuff about Morning Pages.

 Been gone, been long gone. 

Shit got real. Then realer. Then ALL THE SHIT GOT REAL. For everyone.

Let's not address the virus-shaped elephant in the room....DON'T LOOK AT IT! We're all thoroughly and completely mentally exhausted by it by now.

I've been gone so long I don't remember how do operate my own blog dashboard. Sheesh.

It's like going back to MA class after a year and a half...or more. It may have been more. Which I just did this week and...it's rough. Seventy pounds overweight, smoking again, rusty technique, sloppy combos, etc. And I'm in a new dojo, so my anxiety is all over the place.

I need to start over again. Again. I've started doing my Morning Pages again, on September 11, 2020. I first read about them in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Here are the rules. The rules need following because they don't work nearly as well if you don't follow them. Trust me.

• First thing in the morning...yes, it has to be first thing in the morning. When I first restarted, I had been doing them in bed directly after waking. Now I do get up and get coffee first, get dressed, and make the bed. But then I go directly to my office...and using my desk has really helped me feel professional...and open my notebook. No phone usage before pages. That's my own rule, but it's really been helping me focus on why I'm doing the pages.
• Write three pages in longhand, scrawl out just whatever is swimming in your head. Three pages can seem daunting. It's just enough to feel like an assignment to me so I usually start out by whining about how tired I am and goddamn it I don't want to write three pages and I'm fucking tired...and then about a page into it I'm
• Stream of consciousness...this is important. Don't stop and think, don't edit. This is not supposed to be a journal, a memoir, an essay. It doesn't have to be "good", it doesn't need grammar or punctuation or proper spelling. It can be the most toxic vitriol...I've done that. It can be whiny First World Problems...I've done that. It can be happy, hopeful stuff...I...haven't done that...YET. Just spew. This is a safe space. This is...releasing mental pressure valve. Your anxieties and fears won't disappear. But for me they sort of...fade into the background. They're still there, they still bother me, but I can see them for what they are and since I spewed about them first thing in the morning.
• Don't reread them, at least for the first two weeks. I suggest if you get an idea for a project make a note of it after you finish the pages, so you won't need to search for it later.

My current Morning Pages journal.

So that's my return entry. Not exciting, but I need to creep my way back into proper writing. Thank you for your patience.