was there a big game or something?

this weekend flew by entirely too fast. saturday morning, the allens three plus fury hiked the pinnacle gulch trail in bodega which was an easy mile trek down to the beach. we got to explore the tide pools on a relatively deserted section of the coast, poke at anemones, and even scored some beach glass! fury found herself a waterlogged piece of driftwood that she was none too happy to leave behind. look at her! that sucker was heavy too!

she's the best! definitely a success!

also to be filed under success: a virtual hangout with my some of my dearest friends, terrance and tracy. a certain mayonegg was supposed to be in on the chat but she napped her way through it which was both impressive and irritating because bruh, we only been planning it for weeks. and when i say we, i mean terrance cause he did all the leg work and good thing he did because it's a pandemic and i ain't trying to be social, even if it's good for me. it was actually quite a lovely reunion of people i've lived with at some point over the last 17 years. and if you had told me 17 years ago that half of us would have kids or own homes or resemble something like adults, i woulda told you to shut up and pour another shot. but yet, here we are, exhausted and requesting more coffee please. terrance has a six year old daughter as well and it was comforting to know that the slovenly approach to household chores and teenage-level surliness are normal for that age. unpleasant, but normal. home life, with offspring or no, is grueling and we all took a moment to daydream about living alone. some of us lingered there longer than others. some of us may still be dreaming about it. the quiet. the cleanliness. the autonomy. the calm. *car screeches as i drive off*

just kidding. i wouldn't do that, even if the impluse is there sometimes. kids are cataclysmic but definitely worth it. watching abby's brain work is such an exquisite treat. the way she can piece some concepts together (santa's not real) while completely failing to grasp others (monsters are real) is just fascinating. witnessing her emotional lability is at once heart-wrenching and triggering. it has forced me to grow in ways i wasn't prepared for but i am trying. loving her is a fearful thing and i feel much too exposed most of the time; get back in my chest where you belong, child! but in typical fashion, she continues to disobey me. also, she's left her toys out again and nothing will sap adulation and goodwill faster than stepping barefoot on a lego. gat dammit, child! go to bed! sigh. she lucky she cute.

with that i leave you your found item of the day:

12 for growth

january 21st was national hug day. if you missed it, i suggest dropping what you are doing and go make up for lost time (in a COVID safe way, that is). a family therapist once said, we need 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 for maintenance and 12 for growth. i am not near the correct threshold but consider myself lucky regarding the caliber of huggers i've encountered in my lifetime. next to my mom and my child who are both naturally gifted in this area, i list (in no particular order) my beloved geener, my beloved lizzie, my beloved uncle megan, my beloved trashley, my beloved kellie, my beloved tracy, my beloved annie, my beloved brigit, my beloved josh, my beloved kenny, the list goes on and on, really. thinking about this got me thinking about just the quality of friendships i have had from all different walks of life, enthusiastic hugger or avoidant hugger alike and just damn, i was born under a lucky star.

then all this loving positivity got me thinking about my own friendship with myself and well, insert record scratch here. yeaaaaahhhhh...gonna need some work there. never mind, let me just download a bunch of memes instead. alright fine. i'll work on myself. it is the year of the great selenie after all. truthfully, i've been in therapy for a long time because mama is an anxious, tightly wound, flighty little bird. but this week, we're kicking it up a notch by starting EMDR. EMDR stands for eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing and is useful in managing PTSD. really it's just a fancy way of saying, i'm retraining my brain and body to respond to stress in a healthy way, instead of crying excessively in the shower which is apparently frowned upon and also getting expensive. as part of my preparation for this next step, i was tasked to come up with 4 resource team members to recall when the emotions become too much: a peaceful place, a wisdom figure, a protective figure, and a nurturing figure. and while my dog fury checks all the boxes for the last three resources, i think i will just imagine myself hugging my friends and that should get me through it.

you know what else will get me through it? music. oh man, i love music so much. i know spotify has its issues but i'm going to be a good little capitalist right now and ignore those issues to say how much i appreciate and am mystified by their predictive algorithms. they predicted i would enjoy a random japanese jazz band named jizue. and holy smokes, i do. then, after listening to jizue obsessively for the past two days, another japanese band was suggested and now i've been listening to them pretty much non-stop since midnight last night. they have an unfortunate name, toe. that's it. just, toe. but one of their album titles is fire: the book about my idle plot on a vague anxiety. incredible, right? my kind of people. it just makes me wish i could read japanese to know the other titles. but their drummer, kashikura takashi, might be inching his way into my top 10, maybe even top 5. and i am more motivated than ever to practice my drumming - on muted practice pads, of course. we have a small house, there's not room to set up my actual kit. but someday we will miraculously make space and then, hoo boy. watch me (please don't, i have incredible stage fright. avert your eyes, I SAID AVERT!)

with that i leave you a song,





and your found item of the day:

well, i feel attacked.

nothing, and no.

that was the answer one of my most favorite teachers ever gave in response to "what have you learned in 2020 and count your blessings". nothing and no. it is a response i am embracing fully because 2020 was hot garbage and i'm still feeling salty about it in this, the year of our lord, 2021. if i had an angel on my shoulder, it would be emperor palpatine encouraging me to let the hate flow through. don't mind if i do.

i missed festivus this year, but i'm not going to let that stop me from airing some grievances. the first is a doozy. i miscarried at 9 weeks in march of 2020. it was right at the start of covid so i was alone in the doctor's office, facetiming nick while three separate practitioners tried and failed to find a heartbeat. it was heartbreaking and humiliating. i bore that shame alone while my coworker nurtured and brought to term a healthy boy, her sixth child. i do not begrudge her happiness but the universe's cruelty was not lost on me. strike one, 2020.

strike two - covid itself. the ultimate thief of joy. teddy roosevelt claimed it was comparison, not so. roosevelt never met covid. i don't have to lay out the ways it affected us - your life has no doubt been equally impacted. pero like, what the everliving fuck, universe? is this because i went to that nickleback concert like 20 years ago? because i was a different person then and it doesn't seem fair to hold a grudge like that. just saying.

strike three, the seahawks. christ almighty, just a thundering cloud of mediocrity. i know, i know. a 12-4 season, divisional champs, what more could i ask for. greatness that's what. another super bowl championship thats what. an mvp caliber qb who straight up collapsed 6 games into the season. couldn't move the ball downfield if his life depended on it. i could dink and dunk better than him and i only partially know what that phrase means. it was probably the most frustrating season i've experienced as a fan because this team was STACKED. *it coulda been a contenda* le sigh. when's seattle's hockey team starting up? i can fall in love with them and they can disappoint me in a different way than the hawks or mariners. it'll be great.

i have other grievances, primarily political, but i don't want to delve too deep into my venomous disgust with the trump administration because that is a cavernous trench from which we may never resurface. so in keeping with a belated festivus, we'll move on to feats of strength. which shant take long because i have become incredibly deconditioned since like, june. but i intend to funnel all this rage into getting fit this year because though i'll probably regret claiming this later on, i declare 2021 the year of selena. yeah. i said it. a year of my life robbed of a whole heckin' lot and i'm not fallin for that shit again. i am reclaiming my time a la maxine waters and y'all better watch out.

with that i leave you your found item of the day:

s'good advice.

where to even start?

hello reader, welcome back. may i offer you a cup of tea? a scone? biscotti? no? you are too shaken up realizing this blog still exists? me too, dear reader. me too. i feel very much like frankenstein (fronkensteeeeeen), resurrecting this monster from the dead. at some point we'll have to contend with the literary horrors this blog will undoubtedly unleash, but that's like at least 10 minutes from now, so i think we can spare some time. which is good because hoo boy, i got a lot to cover.

since the last oh, seven years or so since i last wrote, there's been a few small changes in my life. got married to nick, birthed a child, changed jobs, discovered i don't hate capers as much as i thought, survived a pandemic, survived a fascist coup attempt, got a puppy, you know, just little life blips, really. okay, fine. i am a transformed little butterfly now. though with the quarantine nineteen, i more likely resemble heimlich. who IS indeed a beautiful butterfly and the happiest bug, so it's fitting.

see? happy.

nick and i got married in june 2014 and five months, 33 hours of labor and an emergency c-section later we got to meet our sweet girl, abigail. her difficult entrance into the world was thankfully not a harbinger of her personality as she truly is so loving and thoughtful. parenting has been a wild ride and has challenged nick and i in ways i won't get into now, but it has been a wondrous thing to be someone's mama, especially her mama. she's six and so bright and curious and fun and i feel so lucky to be there to see her grow and learn. i just hope i do a good enough job getting her through life and that she doesn't talk about me excessively in therapy as an adult.

speaking of being an adult: i now work at a native clinic as a medical assistant/scribe, and it's pretty great. i have been there for 5 years which is the longest i've ever been at any job. i attribute this to well, liking going to work. it doesn't feel like work and i love the friends i have made there. that said, my most favorite friend/arch nemesis will be leaving me forever in a week's time and you'll forgive me if i'm inconsolable for 15-20 minutes or so. i may or may not take a vow of silence too. i haven't decided yet. on one hand, i don't think my heart can open up like that again. on the other, i can't keep my yap shut for very long. so we shall see which instinct wins out.

last but not least, since i've kept you far too long, here, please gaze upon my pup:

isn't she the cutest? her name is furiosa, fury for short. we think she's a catahoula mix even though we were told shepard by the animal rescue. in any case we are smitten, even if the cats are less than thrilled to share their home (yes, we still have toby and pippin!). she is 7 months, incredibly spoiled, and gets way too many treats for her own good, as do the cats. but the animals are worth it because, good lord, this year was hard to be human and there's nothing quite like cute animal cuddles to take the stress away. i hope you all find some way to tamper that cortisol - if you need a pupper to hug, i'm happy to share. you have after all, made it this far through my incoherent ramblings. in keeping with my tradition of overpromising, i will aim to write at least one blog post a week and barring that, once a month, and if not that, then quarterly or on the summer solstice. make that winter.

with that, here's your found item of the day: