Today I sit at my desk with emails answered. I have incredible peace of mind. Why? I finally decided to eat a healthy breakfast!
Up at five this morning, it was dark and 6 degrees Farenheit. I couldn’t see Pikes Peak out of my window. I first tackled the dishes from my marathon meal prep sesh yesterday in which I obsessively cooked for hours. I only do that when I am anxious. I am Sicilian and we cook to keep the demons at bay.
These accomplishments aren’t much to a Bill Gates or a Beyoncé. But my Monday checklist, by which I get a jump on all of the poor slobs waiting for resolution time, is as follows:
- Medtiated for 23 minutes (Deepak and Oprah 7 days to taming stress and anxiety guided meditation I bought last year on sale for $29.99 and did twice before in 2019)
- Wrote in my journal, including gratitude (that I am not paralyzed for one thing—fell off a horse December 7 and burst my L2).
- Wrote a poem.
Some things I did I am not proud of today? Had a fight about Leviticus on Facebook. Yeah. I know. Swore at a driver that cut us off. Hey, we’re all works in progress, especially that poor hound.
As far as making Monday my hound (I’m tired of using the female perjorative. Cock. Cock. There! Phew! Much better!) And let me note: I tried to let the new, live-action Lady and the Tramp cheer me–but I was weirded out by the lifelike fur movements and crazy eyes of the stars–how the heck did they make that dog look like Sam Elliot? Or did Sam Elliot always look like that dog? Existential, huh?
The photo essay of my injury on my camera roll seems a little self-obsessed but I’m excited to watch my chins double. My little exercise regimen of 2019 is now verboten thanks to the fact that I can’t nudge my bone shards into my spinal canal with ill-advised aerobics, thus, all of the food I consume seems to be migrating to a region I once optimistically called my neck.
I’ve finished all of my work for my low-residency MFA week in Denver and have happily begun re-reading the flash-fiction book we were assigned and making notes about it—while being spurred by its brilliance to write some pretty cool prose poems (if I do say so myself).
As the Starks were fond of saying: Winter is here. But my Decembers have been traditionally busy and my early Januarys, the same. Once the holiday season is over, I can give myself space to review and recharge, if needed. Last night, my sweetie said it seemed to him like I’d been “shot out of a cannon,” and I replied, “Since birth, hounds (see what I did there?) since birth.”
Still: Something about the absolutist leanings of the world has me troubled, something about the polarization of America and the fact that some assholes threw some puppies out on the highway last week in Calhan, only miles from where I snuggle my pup in oblivious smooshiness. Something about how women are continually harangued to do everything and men are allowed, nay, encouraged, to hide in man caves. Something about a poison petulance at the highest political levels and an artificially inflated economy built to bolster the 1 % and blow smoke up the asses of the rest of us. Tariffs are taxes disguised as nationalism. As Billie Eilish so memorably adds in her blockbuster hit, Bad Guy, “Duh.”
Here’s what I want to know: What makes you sing in the shower and what song is it you choose to sing? Can you help me hold on to a modicum of balance and joy, if not merriment, this post-holiday, pre-apocalyptic 2020? If you can, please do. You see I’ve written a budget and fast fashion from China via Nordy’s Rack is not allowed. My dopamine levels are slated to plummet.
Patty Tomsky 