New Years Resolutions

These Boots are Made for Walkin’, or How I Plan to get my Own Category on NextDoor

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I don’t know what’s happened to me. I’ve become a walker. It’s ridiculous how much I have taken to it. I walk now. That’s a thing I do regularly. I had walked 5.32 miles yesterday before it was even 11 am. Out loud, that doesn’t sound like I’m living up to my original, diva-esque, Mariah Carey year plans, but in looking back over that resolutions list, I’m not actually that far off. My vision of the year probably involved a lot more champagne and foot rubs, however, as I am sorely lacking in champagne and foot rubs. I also noticed from that old post, we were just about to Supermoon.  And here we are, capping off the whole month with another Supermoon. This one yesterday was all eclipsy. I did not turn into a werewolf, sadly. I did not Thriller dance in the streets. My eyes, they did not yellow.

So fun news! I have a new, additional walking buddy, because, let’s be honest, if I’m not able to gossip and laugh while I walk, then what’s the point. I’ll look like a random hoodlum and will wind up on NextDoor under a “Suspicious Character” titled email. I mean, I might be on NextDoor anyway but I don’t need to prompt them.

Or maybe I do. Maybe I plan an elaborate prank that will last weeks that will get all the neighbors riled up and cause them to go all Hardy Boys. I’m going to tell Nurse Friend about this new plan. She’ll be thrilled.

So new walking buddy that hasn’t replaced Nurse Friend will hereby be known as Book Friend. Book Friend and I like to walk on the other side of Encino. The super rich people side. The house James Dean lived in when he died side, the Liberace Piano Pool house side, The Jackson Family Compound side. Two of those are actually in Sherman Oaks, but not the Jackson house. That’s Encino and speaking of the Jackson house, Tito has not come out and greeted me with a warm cup of tea yet, but it might happen if I wish hard enough.

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Liberace Piano Pool house

Yesterday Book Friend and I accidentally (on purpose) walked onto a live car commercial shoot. They yelled “HOT SET!” at us which I think meant, “shut up about your bad life choices and get out of the shot, pajama girl”. That was not exactly how I’d dreamed of being discovered, but we can’t all be Marilyn.

The rich people side is super nice though and we even saw one of those Little Free Library things that look like a bird mansion with books that people set up around the city. The one we came across had nice books in it like Hamlet and Jane Eyre. I’ve wanted to set one of these Little Free Libraries up around my side of the tracks but $10 says that someone would throw a Playboy and a used condom in it and then hit it with a baseball bat.

Look, my side of the Boulevard isn’t so bad. It’s real nice, actually. They have chairs out for you when you need a rest. Give me a glass of champagne and a foot rub, and it’s like, Tito and his tea, who?

That emerald toned, Lazy Boy is as, if not more lavish than any piano pool, don’t let the lure of Hollywood sway your perception.

The next time Book Friend and I walk, I’m going to pick up one of those Maps of the Stars so I can gawk and awe. Do they have a Valley edition? If they don’t, TMZ Tours better look out. They’ll have some Valley competition soon.

I’m going to get kicked out of Encino, aren’t I?

The Purge

It sounds like a horror movie and to be honest, it feels like one. Does throwing things away expunge the soul of everything holding us down? Does it release the heavy? The “sin” of sloth?

I know two types of people, those that throw everything out, including yearbooks and old math tests from 1994 senior year without ever looking back, and then there are the hoarders. Not one of them seems particularly happy and as much as we all lie to ourselves about it, everyone is either a tosser or a keeper.

I’m a keeper. Probably not in like the relationship sense if we’re basing anything on my poor, unfortunate husband’s defeated eye rolls and sighs, but a keeper in like the “keeping the napkin I was holding the time that Prince (yeah, that Prince) sat next to me at a cafe at Universal City Walk that they’ll find under a rat carcass in the hallway when I’ve been forcibly removed from my home by Human Services or a reality show” sense. My husband is the thrower-out type. I’m surprised he hasn’t tossed me. It’s because he’s a saint.

I do not want to be a hoarder. I don’t. I see Pinterest, I am aware of the “freedom from clutter”, the Scandinavian Chic, the lie that is the Shipping Crate home. It doesn’t work for me because Pinterest hasn’t told me where to put my Prince napkin and my homework from that Italian class I took in college 20 years ago. Because what if I remember how to read in Italian, Pinterest? What good would that be if I’ve thrown away all those verb conjugations? I’d be sitting on my faux fur, white rug, backdropped by my exposed brick living room wall with nothing to read.  I also have children which means that carpet wouldn’t stay white for long. In my living room, there are currently three bins overflowing with Rock Em Sock Em Robots, torn comic books, every Lego magazine that has ever been mailed to us, a broken, plastic dreidel, trains, cars, baby toys (no babies here), broken army men, a blue and white Dodgers’ wig (it’s cursed, that’s a different post), A Tim Salmon bobblehead, and a karate belt (we’re not in karate). There’s art projects and homework papers and little notes that say “i LOvE YOU mOM”. I can’t throw that away. And yet somehow I was able to condense a huge bin of every piece of schoolwork my 4th grader ever brought home into an easy to manage folder yesterday. And if I think about all his handprints and backwards letters and spelling tests that are in the trash can now, I’ll cry. So I have to pretend that they don’t exist anymore and that’s a lot of stress. How do the Pinterest people relax and just live??

Tossers?? How do you live?? Have you no souls?

On the opposite end, I’m tired of moving no less than seven shopping bags of old fabric scraps and half-finished sewing projects every time I need to use my desk and I’m pretty sure that less stuff would give the cat hair less area to cling to. Who knows though, it tumbles down the hallway regardless.

I promised the husband that I would clean out these toy bins before the kids get home from school. I have done nothing but toggle back and forth from tumblr and this post while yelling at the cat to stop scratching the couch since 8 am.

But I’m on a quest. To de-stuff my life. It won’t be Pinterest pretty (unless someone knows of a Pinterest board that can help). Just note that I have been attempting The Purge since at LEAST 2013 blogspot days which doesn’t bode too well for me.   I think what I really need is a Roomba.

How powerful is a Roomba? Like if it found a dead rat, hypothetically, could it remove it before the reality show people bring my mom into this?

Home

I missed two blog days because my schedule is all off. When I was in Oregon, I was writing about my day at the end of the day when everything was quiet and I had pictures to add to posts and the only worry I had was if I was wearing enough socks.  Now that I’m back in California, I have dinner to make, dishes to do, children to bathe, bedtime stories to tell, and a cat that’s been waking me up at 5:00 in the morning. So when it’s time to put my 6 year old to bed, I end up falling asleep right next to him and waking up at 3 in the morning with my glasses still on my face, a full bladder, and teeth that haven’t been brushed and a full glass of wine next to me on the nightstand. I’m a disaster. And when you fall asleep at 8:30 pm, 5:00 am is EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS LATER.  I have to force myself to go back to sleep when I wake up at 3am because my body only really wants 6 hours of sleep. I’m turning into night people, but like the opposite way from when I was a cool 23 year old.

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I have no idea where this picture was stolen from originally but I stole it from a dude on tumblr who stole it first.

This year has already gone off the rails. I’ve spent the majority of 2018 not home and in someone else’s space, living someone else’s schedule. And not showering because it was too cold to be wet.

But I’m home now, I’m warm, and I’m buckling back down.

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness or contentment or whatever that is. That place. The Calm. And I think I’ve discovered it. All of it comes down to living your own life and allowing other people to live theirs. Live and let live. Like when you were young and your heart was an open book.

It’s not healthy or peaceful to comb through everyone else’s business looking for things to be mad about. Negativity breeds negativity. It just does. New rule! Ignore it. In this great year that is The Year of Me™️**, I think this is my official tagline: Ignore and move on.  No more unsolicited advice. I’m a notorious advice giver. I wish I could shut up, but the pull of the demons in me that wants to advise others is too strong. But facts are, advice is annoying. No one wants advice, advice is the worst and it makes you want to punch the know-it-all in the mouth. I officially ignore everyone from here on out. Except in the case of NextDoor. Those people are asking for judgement.

New year, new me equals butting out of people’s business. I’ll still probably have something to say, but I will keep it to myself from here on out to the best of my abilities. I mean, still give me the gossip, I love the gossip, you know this, but I need to be done with the acting like I know everything part. I’ll still know everything, obviously, but I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.

I’m still going to blog everyday.

I’m still not going to exercise.

**is the trademark meme out? Is it too 2017? Let me know, I can’t look out of touch with the youth