Preface: I posted this on Facebook before I realized it was blog material.

I am that magical combination of overeducated and rube and nothing exemplifies that more than, first, my telling you that never before ten minutes ago had we ever had a supermarket deliver to our house and, second, that I personified Sarah Millican’s hysterically funny comedy schtick on the same, which I now know is also 100% accurate: “A man brought food to my house! You’re not taking this seriously enough!” (Ding! Extra points for the run-on sentence. Banner day!)

I bailed on Twitter about six months ago. As you know, I am a sensitive beast, and my blood pressure was way too high. Outside of Facebook, I thought that would be the end of my social media interactions.

Yesterday, friend Todd posted about Mastodon which, being somewhat of a dinosaur myself, had not yet hit my radar. Did a quick vetting and joined: https://newsie.social/@jkinnh

I’ve learned how to follow people and do the Mastodon version of LIKING but, outside of my introductory post, that’s as far as I’ve gone.

Still, it’s clear that it’s kinder and gentler (and quieter, if that makes sense), but simultaneously (depending upon who you read) hard-hitting. Just not nasty. Just not gratuitously slinging mud. I don’t have that gripping-the-steering-wheel-in-rush-hour-traffic feeling that Twitter offered. . . and I can’t imagine I will ever miss it.

Hope to read some of you there.

From the man I sent it to, I just received a letter I wrote in 1979 to my now-lifelong college friend; a break-my-heart-and-simultaneously-fill-my-heart-with-love friend, and for the length of time it took to read it – and still as I write – I became that same brokenhearted 20-year-old girl.

Since that letter was written, every emotion/interaction that he and I have shared over the last 40+ years just flooded my system, and I am a puddle of tears and beyond freaked. The irony?

Over the past few years, with the thought being that sending letters back to the people who wrote them would offer a better understanding of where they were at certain points in their lives, I have done precisely that. I had no idea what I may have been doing to their psyches.

Sequestered in a guest bedroom upstairs, I hear her go back and forth, back and forth, from bedroom to kitchen, kitchen to bedroom, looking for me, looking for Andy, looking for a treat or, like her Mama, forgetting why she went into the other room to begin with.

Masked and gloved, as if either will do any good at this point, I cautiously walk halfway down the stairs, catch her eye and make a “come on” hand signal. She doesn’t come on. Back and forth…the stuff of a dog owner’s guilt.

This can be added to the many previously untold stories of Covid isolation.

I decided to take some time and do some introspection. It only yielded more questions, one of which is:

Why can I watch every episode of ER dozens of time, but can count on one hand the number of times I’ve reread a book?

I’ve checked under the couch cushions, between the passenger door and front seat in my car, and even in the refrigerator in case I mindlessly left it there but, no matter where I’ve looked, I can’t find where I lost my ability to sleep. Am guessing it’s in my late 40s but how to get back there…

From the “I’m-Afraid-This-Really-Just-Happened” Department:

Husband, about to head out.
Me: Happy…happy?…Happy Judy’s Birthday to you.
Husband: (sighs)
Me: How old would she have been? She was born in… ’51?
Husband: She was 10 years older than you so…
Me: (interrupting) No, that’s Jan.
Husband: So…
Me (interrupting): She’s SEVENTY? That can’t be.
Husband: You just said…
Me (interrupting): She’s 7 years older than me. So she would have been…68!?
Andy: You’re 62, dear. So she was born in ’52 and would have been 69.
Me: Oh, just take your math and go!

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Judy. I trust this amused you.

Found this from 2016:

I just pulled a straw out of the box. Sometimes a girl gets tired of spilling on herself, but I digress…On the box is written: Everyday Flexible Straws. As opposed to…? “Honey, we’ve got company. Break out the good straws.”

Even though I am the 6th of 9 children, I have always managed to be the baby of the family.

“Done FOR you, not TO you” is how we may find gratitude in shit that has befallen us. It doesn’t negate that it was shit, but it keeps one’s mind from imploding.