Life – Page 6

Thursday April 23, 2015Life, Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

I have been a super stress monkey lately with the release of my second book, and have been giving myself a hard time about it. After all, it’s my second book, this isn’t my first rodeo and all of those other clichés. I finally realized this morning, that while it may be my second book, this is the first book that I’m publishing through the new company that I launched this year. It’s my first time working directly with a printer, and dealing with fulfillment and distribution. So while it is my second book, there are a whole lot of firsts going on. Essentially, this isn’t simply the release of my second book, it’s the launch of my business. Holy shit. I feel like the stress may be justified.

Though at the same time, are the moments of near panic really doing anything productive? Is fixating on the paltry online sales and staring at the boxes of books in my living room that are not dwindling fast enough to ensure that I’ll be able to pay the printer for them when the bill comes in, doing any good? No, they’re not. All it is doing is keeping me up at night and causing me to use my asthma inhaler more often. Which, FYI in case you were curious, a couple of puffs of albuterol will help shortness of breath caused by a panic attack. You learn something new every day! Look at that silver lining. I can find them anywhere.

Aside from that little tidbit of knowledge there, no good has come from the freaking out. In fact, I’ve noticed that instead of motivating me to problem-solve, it has actually motivated me into a cycle of self-sabotage. Good times! Over the past two weeks I have been so overwhelmed with stress that I have lost track of how many times I have sat on my couch and actually thought to myself, “Kat, you have plenty of time to get X done. If you don’t get it done tonight you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot for tomorrow.” Logic says that with that realization I would get up and go do whatever task X was. However, stress-monkey-self-sabotage Kat said, “Okay.” Then cocked the gun and shot myself in the foot. At this point, both of my feet look like Swiss cheese – figuratively of course because no one in their right mind would give this klutz an actual firearm!

Because of that, on top of having a whole slew of books in my living room that I need to sell I also have:

A box with an unassembled organizational unit (to more neatly store the aforementioned books)
Four loads of laundry
Two sinks full of dishes
A half-finished birthday present
A half-finished baby-shower present
A half-finished article
Two unread manuscripts with author’s waiting for responses
7 chapters behind on rewrites
And a partridge in a frickin pear tree

Okay, I don’t have a partridge, but you get the point. Now all of that isn’t that bad, except for the fact that I’m scheduled to get an injection in my ankle today which will require me to stay off of my feet for two weeks. Hence, the shooting myself in the foot analogy above. Some of that stuff I can get done sitting on my butt, but some of it I definitely can’t which means that it will drive me batty for two weeks, which I know will increase the stress-monkey-self-sabotage tendency that I have fallen into. So I am putting my foot down, the good one, and ending the cycle. I’m not exactly sure what that’s going to look like, but I know that it’s going to start with me finishing my article tonight. From there I’m gonna have to make it up as I go. Any advice, or suggestions on strategies that have worked for you are gladly appreciated. And should you want one of the books that are piled up in my living room, the links are below.

To Purchase Domestically Click Here – You can also browse custom, hand made jewelry here!

To Purchase Internationally Click Here

Tuesday April 21, 2015Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

Okay, so we all know that I’m a bit of a “Prepare for the worst” type of person. Which is why I have 3, count them, 3 earthquake kits. One at home, one at work and one in my car. People make fun of me, but when the shit hits the fan people are gonna be freaking out, and I’ll be hunkered down under my tarp tent, making lentil soup on my portable stove, and perusing a crossword in my comfy pants. We’ll see who’s laughing then! Just kidding, I wouldn’t laugh. I would probably be helping someone make their own tent . . . even if it’s just out of duct tape, which I will also have.

At any rate, I find myself reading quite a few articles about preparedness and then patting myself on the back afterwards, because I’ve usually taken the majority of the steps mentioned. Then somebody sent me an infographic about how to prepare your car for emergencies and I realized that I don’t actually have anything in my car to help with car-related type emergencies, with the exception of jumper cables. So needless to say, I have some work to do on that front. Since I found it helpful, I figured that all of you might as well. Here’s a link to the original post, but here’s the graphic that I like:

Pretty cool huh? Now if you will excuse me, I need to do some research on seat-belt cutters and flares!

***10 Cheeky Monkeys is now available for purchase. Click here to order today!***

Thursday April 16, 2015History, Life, Right vs WrongLeave a comment

I have been doing a lot of research lately on a truly remarkable woman, who is known for a simple thing. Like every mother out there, she loved her son. What makes her remarkable is that she publicly stated – in a letter to the editor of the New York Post – that she loved her homosexual son. It was 1972, and this was a first. I don’t want to go into detail because she is the subject of my next Heroine of History, but this research has been weighing on me. As much as I am inspired by her actions, I am upset that they were necessary in the first place. I am more upset, that they are still necessary.

For years I used to proclaim that I didn’t care if a person was black, white, Asian, Hispanic, gay, straight, bi, trans, etc. I cared if they were kind, if they were trustworthy, if their presence in my life made my life better. Labels were just labels, and I paid them no heed. While I still very much believe in the latter, I have come to discover that I was wrong about the former. I lied, I do care. I care very much for my friends of color and my LGBTQ friends. At times I find that I care more for them, because it makes me sick to see the things that are said and the things that are done to people because they look or love differently.

It broke my heart when a black friend made a request that should he ever be killed by police and painted in the media as just another thug, that we, his friends, stand up for him and try to set the record straight. To make sure that somebody was talking about the kind, generous, intelligent and incredibly talented artist. That somebody was talking about how much this well-rounded member of our community would be missed. That somebody was talking about more than the color of his skin and how he must have deserved what he got. This request shook me to the core. It made me realize that I do care that he is black, because I care very deeply that he ever had to have that thought. That he ever had to dwell on that thought for so long that it became a need to express his feelings. No one should ever have to feel so devalued as a race, or as a person that they have to ask for advocacy. Because of that, I care.

Because of the fact that this country is in a state-by-state battle to legitimize same-sex marriage, I care. Just the thought of that pisses me off. The fact that there are people out there who seriously believe that there is anything wrong or illegitimate about one person loving another makes me see red. The fact that my friends, and their community, are exposed on a daily basis to descriptors like – wrong, unnatural, gross, immoral, etc – makes me want to punch people in the face. Do you want to know what’s unnatural? Judging and condemning people that you’ve never met. I honestly can’t think of anything more unnatural than that, and yet people do it all the time. Because of that, I care.

I care because I was asked today if I thought my open support of equality would negatively impact the sales of my new children’s book. To that question I have only one response – I am proud to be an ally, and you can expect to see my Heroines of History article championing gay rights later this month. Perhaps I’ll be able to find a black lesbian to feature next. Challenge accepted.

Thursday March 26, 2015Happiness, LifeView all 2 comments

I don’t know why, but lately I have had absolutely zero patience for complaining and negativity. Not that I’ve ever had a ton of patience for that, but lately I’ve been having to bite my tongue to keep from saying things like, “Then fucking do something about it, or quit bitching!” Which I’m sure we can all agree, would not go over well, so I will continue to bite my tongue. Or at the very least use a filter so that sentiment comes out as, “Is there something that you can do to fix the situation?” However, the danger of that approach is that when they respond in the negative and then it spurs them on to complain more, the odds of me banging on my head on the wall go up precipitously. And yes, I appreciate the irony that I am currently complaining about people complaining. And yes, it makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

The problem is that I will never understand how or why someone can be unhappy and not do anything and everything in their power to fix the situation. I, of course, lump myself into the group as well. For years I was absolutely miserable, and while I can’t remember complaining a whole lot about it (my friends might beg to differ, though) I also don’t remember doing anything to fix whatever it was that was making me unhappy. That baffles me. I don’t know if it was due to fear or an inability to pinpoint what the real problem was, but I did nothing. I woke up, went through my day like every day before, and went to bed. At the end of the week I bemoaned the fact that nothing had changed. Of course it hadn’t! Complaining is not an active verb!

Seriously how often does complaining solve anything? Maybe at a restaurant if they get your food wrong. But even here, I have a feeling that you’ll get better service if instead of complaining that it isn’t right, you ask them to fix it. As someone who has worked in food service, there is a huge difference! Complaining that it’s wrong, is a passive aggressive way of asking for it to be fixed. Think about it. You are putting the onus of coming up with a solution on the server, which of course runs the risk of them not coming up with the solution that you wanted, which will inevitably cause you to complain some more. How much easier would it be to simply ask that your burger be cooked longer, instead of pointing out that it wasn’t cooked properly?

Assume responsibility for your lives people! If something is making you unhappy, take actions to solve the problem. If the problem can’t be solved and you are stuck, then find some way to accept the situation and be at peace with it. Complaining and being negative accomplishes nothing . . . except perhaps annoying the crap out of me, and other than my sister, I don’t know of anybody that intentionally annoys me for sport. Or maybe that’s me that annoys her for sport . . . either way there are better ways then constant complaining! My job now is to figure out PC ways of pointing this out to the people around me. Starting with my coworker who has class tonight and complains about having to go every single week . . . wish me luck.

Tuesday March 17, 2015Humor, LifeView all 3 comments

This past weekend I went to a BBQ, and upon walking into this family’s yard my first thought was not, “Wow, what a gorgeous house.” Or even, “cool, a pool.” It was, “Holy mother of God that’s a tiger!!!” Now mind you, there was not actually a tiger. There was however, an almost life-sized stuffed animal of a tiger that one of the kids had left on a lounge chair. Now notice, I said almost life-sized, therefore not actually big enough to be a real tiger, and I don’t know that anyone else would have mistaken it for the genuine article. Especially since who in their right mind would have a pet tiger and let it roam around free during a BBQ without warning your guests of its presence! This did not matter. My brain saw it, refused to acknowledge the absurdity of it being real and immediately began to freak the fuck out. I’m actually amazed that I didn’t run over my host trying to get out of the yard. Instead I completely missed the names of everyone that I was being introduced to while trying to stave off a panic attack, and wondering why everyone was so calm with a mother fucking tiger in the yard! Eventually, probably a span of ten seconds but it felt like half an hour, my brain calmed down enough for me to register that it was indeed a stuffed animal, not a real tiger, at which point I blurted out, “Oh my god, I thought that was a real tiger.” Which I’m sure helped to explain the absolutely terror-stricken look on my face, but did nothing to calm the look of “We’re in the presence of a crazy person” that was on everyone else’s face. What can I say, I make quite the first impression.

And quite frankly, I blame this entire reaction on my childhood which has instilled in me an irrational fear of large cats. I know what you’re thinking, there’s nothing irrational about being afraid of lions and tigers, which is true. But the irrationality of my fear comes from the fact that I’m afraid of them to the point that I expect to see them in completely nonsensical locations … like poolside at a family friendly BBQ. This is because I grew up a couple of miles from the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, which is an absolutely gorgeous tiny little spot, that also happens to have the highest population of mountain lions per square mile in the entire Rocky Mountain region. That means that if you look all the way from Canada through the US and down into Mexico, the frickin mountain lions find Grand Lake, CO the most hospitable spot.

Therefore, when city kids were learning about stranger-danger we were learning about what to do should you encounter a mountain lion in the wild. Which if you spent anytime outside the odds were pretty good that you might, whether you knew it or not. Needless to say, this made quite the impression on me, and formed a very healthy respect/fear of the creatures. Because of this, at night when I had to get up to go to the bathroom, it wasn’t the boogie man, or monsters that I feared, okay I was afraid of them too, but mostly, it was the mountain lion that slept at the end of the hall at night. So whenever I had to go to the bathroom, I had a set procedure.

Step 1 – Jump off the bed landing far enough away that the monsters underneath couldn’t swipe my ankles.

Step 2 – Open the door then run as quickly as humanly possible across the hall to the bathroom.

Step 2.5 – Glance quickly down the hall while crossing to ensure that the mountain lion isn’t there yet.

Step 3 – Slam the bathroom door shut, while simultaneously flipping on the bathroom light, making sure that the light turns on before the door is fully closed or the boogie man will jump out of the mirror and get me.

Step 4 – Go pee.

Step 5 – Repeat process, but in reverse, to get back into bed.

To be honest, I’m amazed that I didn’t just wet the bed to avoid the hassle. But I didn’t, and as long as I followed my procedure all was well. Until one night, when I did the mountain lion check and saw a sleeping mountain lion curled up at the end of the hall. Okay, it wasn’t actually a mountain lion, but we had just gotten a new dog, and it is amazing how similar a golden retriever/golden lab mix resembles the coloring and size of a mountain lion in the dark. I, however, was unable to make this distinction, racing across the hall in the middle of the night, checking to make sure that the coast was clear. As the coast was most definitely NOT clear, I lost my shit, and ran down the hall screaming into the living room. Of course, hearing one of her people screaming, the dog jumped up and chased after me. Now I was being chased by the mountain lion at the end of the hall and once in the living room, still screaming, I started to climb up on and across all of the furniture. Apparently in my addle-pated state, playing lava seemed like the thing to do.

By now the dog was thoroughly concerned and had followed me up onto the furniture and was trying her dead level best to catch up to me so that she could protect me. My poor father, hearing the ruckus and probably assuming that his daughter was being axe murdered, arrived in the living room to find a berserk child practically climbing the walls to get away from a very concerned and worried dog. After that, I don’t really remember what happened, although if I had to guess, I probably didn’t sleep for a week. Needless to say, I had a bit of an over-active imagination as a child, and apparently that hasn’t changed much. Hence, my belief that there could be a tiger at a BBQ. Good grief!

Tuesday February 24, 2015Body Image, Happiness, Inspiration, Life, WomenView all 5 comments

I don’t know why, but I’ve been noticing a lot more than usual how negative women are about their bodies. I don’t think this is because I’ve started hanging around particularly negative people lately, I think it’s more to do with the fact that for whatever reason I have begun to notice it, where before I must have ignored it. After all, it’s endemic. If you stop and pay attention for that specifically you’ll start to hear women in the coffee shop, the elevator, the bathroom (especially the bathroom), etc. talk about how much they HATE some part of their body. Women hate their curly hair, their straight hair, their big noses, their small teeth, their fat ankles, their thick thighs, their non-existent butts, the wrinkles on their forehead, mouth, eyes, hands etc., etc., etc. I truly believe that if you listen long enough to enough women you will hear that there is at least one woman out there that hates every single part of the female body. I honestly don’t think there is a body part that will escape scrutiny, and that makes me sad.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely complained about my own body. For example, my ears don’t match. Seriously, they look completely different, like they’re from two totally different people. How does that even happen? As far as I know, ears are supposed to be a matched set, emphasis on matched! (Also, side note, do you have any idea how hard it is to take pictures of your own ears?)

I also have insanely long and skinny toes. They’ve been called everything from prehensile to gross, thank you to my sister for that one. Not to mention my feet are so narrow it’s impossible to find shoes that fit, so I always have redness or some sort of blister on my pinky toes that is impossible to hide when wearing sandals and always draws notice.

That being said, I don’t hate those things about myself. They are part of what make-up the quirky package that is Kat Michels, so how can I hate a part without eventually hating the whole? Let me say that again. How can you hate a part of yourself, without it eventually creeping in and causing a hatred of your whole self? Hate is an insidious thing, and if you give it purchase anywhere, it will eventually have purchase everywhere. So every time I hear a woman say that she hates some aspect of her appearance, it breaks my heart a little bit, because each utterance and each thought is a hammer blow on the chisel lodged in that woman’s self-worth. We as women determine our own self-worth, it comes from inside us. So every time we disparage ourselves, it gets chipped away a little bit.

I know that a lot of people will argue that they don’t actually ‘hate’ whatever body part it was that they mentioned. To them I ask, why do you say you do then? What do you actually mean if you don’t ‘hate’ it? Do you not like it, or do you wish it was different? How is that better? Why do we spend so much time fixating on the things that we don’t like? Especially things about our physical body that can’t be changed! How can you hate the wrinkles on your forehead? They are proof that you have gotten to spend time out in the sun – some of it hopefully in leisure – they are often times proof that you have smiled, sometimes they are proof that you were gravely ill, but were able to pull through, and they are irrevocable proof that you have lived long enough to get wrinkles. That is a privilege that is denied to so many, that I can’t understand where the hate comes from.

A similar argument can be made for any other body part that women hate, but better yet, let’s stop justifying things based on other people’s misfortunes. Let’s turn the focus on ourselves. Each and every body part, each aspect of our appearance makes up part of who we are. Yes, the total is greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts matter too. Not only do they matter, but how we talk about them to ourselves and to others matters. I truly believe that we need to learn to not only be nicer, but be more positive to ourselves. Instead of fixating on what we hate, we should be fixating on what we love, no matter how small. I’m not saying that you have to love each and every part of your body. That is asking way too much. But I have a feeling that if you shift your focus to the parts of you that you love, you’ll soon discover that those other parts of you all of a sudden don’t matter so much anymore. Because like hate, if you give love a place to roost, it will take over the whole damn place. And to me, that doesn’t sound too bad.

**It was brought to my attention that I should mention that I have not always felt this way or had this kind of confidence when it comes to my body. I spent all of middle and high school wishing that I could walk around with a paper bag over my head because my acne made me feel like I was hideous and gross. Even when I got to college and the acne was gone, I still didn’t have anything nice or complimentary to say about myself or my appearance. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties, with the guidance of a therapist and several years of persistent work to change my inner monologue, that I made it to where I am today.

Thursday January 29, 2015LifeOne comment so far

I don’t know about anybody else, but I am the Queen of jumping back into things too soon. I am a horrible patient. It doesn’t matter if I have the flu and I am laid up in bed wishing for death for a week. The second that I feel remotely better I’m right back at it with a to-do list the length of my arm and attempting to pull a 16 hour day. Needless to say, this never turns out well for me. I usually wind up sicker the next day and reverse all of the good that staying in bed for a week did. You would think that I would learn and stop doing this, but apparently the learning curve of this particular trait is very steep!

It is with this in mind, that my daily mantra has become, “Baby steps.” Last July I was diagnosed with costochondritis – a swelling of the cartilage around my sternum and lower left ribs. For any of you who have ever broken/bruised/dislocated ribs, the pain is very similar and so are the restrictions. For it to heal, you have to stop using your ribs. Funny right? How in the hell do you stop using your ribs? They tend to move every flippin’ time you breath! But never fear, the pain will teach you how to breathe without moving your sternum or lower ribs. Meet your new friend, shallow breaths. And any other sort of physical activity, forget it!

Now I’m not a gym rat. I generally have to remind myself to go, but the second that I was no longer allowed to go, I had a hankering for a Zumba class like nobody’s business! I was, however, good. I followed doctor’s orders and by the end of October I was mostly pain free . . . until I developed a cough at the beginning of November and undid three months-worth of healing. Throw on the car accident in December and I was a hurtin’ puppy come new years. That being said, I discovered a wonderful magic elixir – Nopal juice, get this stuff it’s amazing on inflammation – that has decreased my inflammation dramatically. Subsequently, my ribs haven’t given me more than a twinge for over a week. Whoo-hoo!

Let’s go rowing and take a Pilates class, and play putt-putt golf, and check out the batting cages, and take the puggles on a five mile walk to wear there little butts out and, and, and . . . sit back down and reevaluate my choices. BABY STEPS. How about a short walk with the puggles? Maybe some Tai-Chi. BABY STEPS. Maybe I’m about to go nutso out of my mind because I just want to go DO things! Be active! Work up a sweat! Or maybe some nice gentle stretching would be good. BABY STEPS. It’s my new mantra. I hate my new mantra. But I’m going to be good. Baby steps. Ugh!

Tuesday January 27, 2015LifeOne comment so far

I recently came across a blog post – that seems to be making the rounds so you’ve probably seen it as well – that I found very intriguing. It is entitled, “7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose.” Huh? Okay, I’m game. I read through it and found that this guy may actually have something. So I decided that it would be an interesting exercise to answer his questions. True, I’m cheating a bit since I’m already pretty sure what my purpose is, but I’m going to play anyway.

1 – What’s your favorite flavor of shit sandwich and does it come with an olive?

A solitary sandwich with a pickle on the side. Writing entails large amounts of time spent all by yourself. Not only by yourself in a physical sense, but in a working sense as well. Those words won’t get on the page unless you put them there. The research won’t get done unless you do it, and the problem chapter won’t get rewritten unless you grind it out. Writing can be a very lonely business. I can handle alone.

2 – What is true about you today that would make your 8-year-old self cry?

I can’t remember the last time that I played on a swing. The sheer bliss of feeling the wind whip your hair back, the slight moment of weightlessness, of floating with nothing around to catch you as you reached the top of the arc and then the whoosh backwards as you descend. I used to love to swing, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, that was me time. My time to meditate and center myself. I think my 8-year-old self would cry if she knew that I didn’t have that anymore.

3 – What makes you forget to eat and poop?

Um, nothing. Seriously, I don’t forget. I get all sorts of hangry when I don’t eat regularly. And poop, hah! With my digestive issues, I would pay good money to be able to stop thinking about poop for a day!

4 – How can you better embarrass yourself?

Talking to people in a public venue, like say an interview. I’m a bit quirky. Okay, fine, you can find my picture next to the definition in the dictionary. Add this to the fact that I have very little inhibition and I tend to find myself in potentially embarrassing situations all the time. For example, over the weekend I found myself at a purse party – you know, there’s a hostess and she has a line of products, purses, storage containers, etc. Well I found myself looking at a purse and thinking, “Huh, I bet that would fit on my head like a hat.” Now most people would have had that thought, dismissed it and moved on with their day. Okay, most people wouldn’t have had that thought in the first place. Quirky, remember. However, instead, I found myself repeating the thought, out loud this time, and trying the purse on like a hat. I’m fairly sure that if the future entails me being in front of people, this is just the beginning. FYI – I was correct, it fit quite nicely as a hat.

5 – How are you going to save the world?

I grew up believing that I could choose any life path I wanted and no goal was out of reach if I worked hard enough. The fact that I was a girl never once was a part of that equation. I have since come to realize that not all girls were taught this. In fact, there are many girls out there that believe they only have a select few doors open to them simply because they were born a female. I want to change that. Not with rhetoric and catchy slogans, but by providing examples of women, who were just like them, who did extraordinary things.

6 – Gun to you head, if you had to leave the house all day, every day, where would you go and what would you do?

Coffee shop with books and my iPad. And forget the gun to my head, I’d do this willingly.

7 – If you knew you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how would you want to be remembered?

If money were no issue (I’m going to assume that that is part of this question) I would visit and spend time with as many of my loved ones as I could. If there were time while doing this I would finish all of the books that I have started, but really the priority would be seeing those I love. And I would want to be remembered as a loyal, caring friend, who loved deeply. And also wrote a book or two.

What’s your purpose?

Thursday January 22, 2015Change, LifeView all 5 comments

I have a sweet tooth, a REALLY big sweet tooth. For just about any and all things, the sweeter the better. Candy, pastries, cake, ice cream, dessert wine, sign me up and bring me seconds! I’m really kind of amazed that I’m not diabetic. That being said, I know that eating refined sugar is super bad for you, especially in large quantities. I’ve read enough articles and know enough about nasty diseases, like cancer, to know that a diet revolving around sweets can only end in catastrophe. So I’ve tried to cut out refined sugar before. Trust me when I say, that you do not want to be around me when I’m on a no sugar diet. It’s not pretty. In fact the only thing uglier is when I try to cut coffee out – think Godzilla films, the fire-breathing ones.

Therefore, I have embraced the coffee addiction and contended myself with trying to cut back on sugar, instead of eliminating, so that I don’t wind up in county jail for strangling someone with a red vine. Instead, I have been focusing on eating anti-inflammatory foods. When I did a recap of last year, it occurred to me that I have a major inflammation problem: sinusitis, otitis, costochondritis, gastritis, tendonitis, everything ends in ‘itis.’ My body is pretty much systemically inflamed. So, falling back on my old stand-by, I did a bunch of research to figure out how to alleviate this issue. Go figure, the answer is to change your diet, and address/fix any of the chronic inflammation injuries. So I’m seeing a specialist for the chronic tendonitis in my ankle and I’ve started taking a liquid supplement geared toward anti-inflammation.

Now with this supplement, you’re supposed to take it first thing in the morning, and to say that it is sweet is an understatement. It is so syrupy sweet that it is too much for me. This stuff is intense. However, it works, so I’m still taking it.

I’m going to pause for a tangent here because this stuff is AMAZING. Like I noticed a difference after taking it for a week, amazing. Like the pain in my ribs has gone down 95%, amazing. Like I might turn into their unofficial spokeswoman, amazing. Seriously, if you have inflammation problems get this stuff. It’s called Nopal Juice. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

In fact I’ve been taking it for two weeks now and I noticed something yesterday. While filling up my gas tank I ran inside to get some water and as usual perused the candy rack while waiting in line to pay. I decided against getting anything, paid for my water and went back out to my car. Now this in itself is not overly odd. I often choose not to get something because candy is bad for you and composed of completely pointless calories. I WANT candy, but chose to not eat any. This, however, was not the case. Sitting in my car I realized that I chose to pass because I DID NOT want any. WHAT?!?!?! Me not in the mood for something sweet? Who am I, and what happened to Kat?

Then I began to look over everything else that I had eaten during the week. None of it was sweet either, with the exception of a small handful of caramel corn that made me feel ill. Other than that, everything I had eaten had been composed of fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats. And all of it made from scratch so no added sugar lurking about to make it taste better. So I really thought about it, all of the sweet things that I love to eat, and none of them sounded good. Weird.

My conclusion is that there is something about that juice – which I think I will henceforth affectionately refer to as Kool-Aid – or I’ve been abducted by aliens and replaced with a healthier version of myself. It’s a toss-up really. Either way I’m going to keep drinking the Kool-Aid.

Tuesday December 09, 2014Life, LossView all 3 comments

How is one supposed to say goodbye? Is it for a couple of minutes, hours, days, weeks, years or the rest of your life time? We never really know when we utter that simple phrase. It could be any of the above. Life is fragile and ever-changing. But how do you say goodbye when you know in your heart of hearts that it is indeed the last time? The last time that you will see their face, the last time that you will feel their hug. Do you hug a little tighter, a little longer? Do you look them in the eye when you tell them that you love them? Do you linger and prolong the exchange or turn your back and walk swiftly away? What could possibly be enough? What can possibly be done to fill the gap, the void that you know will soon exist as soon as the door closes, the car turns over and you drive away.

Because there is a void. A great black void that you try not to think about, try not to look at, try not to imagine having to fill again. How can you fill it again? It belonged to them, and they are now gone. Is the goodbye supposed to help fill that hole? Be a patch, a bridge to get from one side to the other? You don’t get the person, you get the goodbye. That last moment that you know you will remember until the end of your days. You have memories of course, but none of them are stamped so indelibly on your heart, because in all of the other memories you believed that you would have more. More times to cherish, more laughs to share, more time to be had. You always believe that there will be more time. Until there isn’t.

And then you’re left trying to figure out how to say goodbye.