Blather, rinse, repeat

la_belle_laide @ 2023-01-15T18:13:00

2023-01-15T23:25:03Z

A few weeks ago, one of the assistants at PT--Emma--mentioned she was going to the Mariah Carey show in NYC, and one of the PTs (guy in his early 30s) made fun of her for it and was like "OMG why, she's a total diva!" and Emma was like "I mean... that's kind of the point." Then she went on to say that she was not going to stand for any Mariah slander, and from there we all got onto the subject of how female pop and rap stars get disparaged a lot. I mean obviously so do male ones, but the insults are different.

Then the guy was like, "Any Swifties here?" and all the women present were like... "Not exactly, but also don't talk shit about her because she's a great songwriter" and things sort of along those lines. Even if "Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby" is a corny line, she follows it with "And I'm a monster on the hill / too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city / pierced through the heart but never killed" and like???? That's such a great verse!

I said a while back on FB that Doja Cat's Vegas is way more of an homage to Big Mama Thornton's Hound Dog (and better song) than Presley's Hound Dog (and I'll say it again!) Doja Cat is actually pretty amazing when you listen to her rap, nobody does staccato rap like her.

14 year old girls discovered The Beatles and now dudes are like "OMG greatest band ever," LOL. 14 year old girls pretty much discovered all of the biggest acts, and made them what they were. People make fun of boybands like BTS but those guys are pretty amazing.

IDK why this got on my mind today but!

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la_belle_laide @ 2023-01-13T22:52:00

2023-01-14T04:22:26Z

During the summer, Gavin came over every night and I let Callum stay up super late and we marathoned The Untamed. The last episode was the last Friday before school started and Callum was so upset that he cried: so many reasons, summer being over, our fun Chinese Drama nights being over, sad that he wouldn't see Gavin as much etc. So we said, why don't we continue our Chinese Drama Nights once a week? And now Gavin comes over every Friday and we watch Douluo Continent and Mo Dao Zu Shi, Callum stays up late, we all have an ice cream cone, and then we sit around chatting (Callum goes to bed after the shows are over because he still gets tired around 10 PM,) and we just laugh the night away.

It's wild because to me it feels like we were just picking gavin up at the airport when he was 10 months old. Like... this was YESTERDAY to me and now he's a few weeks shy of 16 and I'm not sure how this happened.

And Callum is right behind him and I just can't cope with that sometimes.

My two boys.

Gavin comes everywhere with us in the summer. I wanted to take him with us to Chinatown for the Lunar New Year next week, but his Mom was too nervous about him going into the city and that's valid. I'm nervous about it myself tbh. I haven't been to the city since the year before Callum was born.

Bazzy and Mason were supposed to come over to play with Callum on saturday, and Bazzy was supposed to sleep over, but Mason is sick now (negative thankfully) and Bazzy still has a cough from being sick last week, so we'll see.

OMG and Miranda turned 17 a few days ago.Zach will be 19 in May. Haven't heard from Zach since before Christmas. :(

Zach, Miranda, and Bazzy are my cousin Celia's kids btw. Gavin and Mason's parents--my cousin Chrissie and her husband Tim--have custody of them. That's a long, unhappy story for another time.

I had a whole other section of this that I was gonna write about, but now I'm second-guessing myself so I deleted it!

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taking care

2023-01-13T03:39:26Z

I'm so shocked by the death of Lisa Marie Presley. Sort of shocked, but then I remember she lost her son two years ago, so maybe not so shocking I guess. Grief is the worst kind of stress.

TMI but I have been having massive hot flashes since literally my 50th birthday (this coincides with no period since right before my birthday, which YAY, but!) but the hot flashes are misery. At first I was getting like, 20 a day. I saw the OBGYN and she was like "Sorry hon I know it's awful" because she went through it too, but you can't take estrogen until you're 12 months without your period and I'm not. She recommended all these different supplements and I'm trying some, and SOMEthing is working because now I get like, maybe 5 a day.

But the thing is, the hot flashes come with a heart palpitation so fierce that it made me call my regular doctor because I'm like, well what if it's not just menopause heart palpitations, what if it's not actually menopause at all but a heart problem? (Even though it lines up with not getting my period.) So my regular doc is referring me to the cardiologist and I will gladly go there and wear the haulter monitor and such. You really can't be too careful with things like this. It's worth it to go.

I've been to the cardiologist before anyway, the time a few years ago when I blew out my knee again and the City MD doc was like "OMG your ligaments are falling apart, you have marFAN'S SYNDROME YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE CARDIOLOGIST" so, off I went. When I told him why I was there he told me "That sounds fake but okay" and he did a bunch of tests, echo and all of that.

But that was about 3 years ago, so why not go again.

I really WAS trying to get some lighthearted stuff in here these days, but my god it's hard sometimes.

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la_belle_laide @ 2023-01-11T18:39:00

2023-01-11T23:53:08Z

I was driving to PT today after dropping Callum off at school and I totally had something in mind to write about, but now I can't remember what it was.

PT though, PT is actually fun. I know it's a drag for some people, but it actually helps me a lot, and the people there are super nice. Most of them are like, 20-30 years younger than I am, aside from the PT himself who's a year or two older. It's a very chatty place, everyone always ends up talking and being really social. last week, I met the best friend of the woman who wrote Jennifer's Body.

There's a young woman there, Emma, she's the PT assistant. She's 27 and we get along so well. We started chatting early on last year because, on a hunch, I asked her if she played Animal Crossing New Horizons, and she about lost her mind. And so now we visit each other's islands and such.

Animal Crossing new Horizons was important to me (still is) (and to a lot of people) because it came out right at the beginning of covid lockdowns in '20, and no one could visit each other. So everyone built their version of paradise, and the game had the, like, totally prescient function of allowing people to visit each other's "homes" and interact with each other. Bring gifts, talk, "eat" together, visit the museum, shop at each other's stores, go swimming and fishing with friends. A lot of people who had to put off or cancel their weddings did ceremonies on their islands, and invited their friends, which is epic.

My one friend - actually her Mom was my friend, we were Hula sisters back in the day. But she (the Mom I was friends with) died from covid in march of '20. (And I mean, it was godawful, GODAWFUL, and it happened really fast, literally within hours her daughter was posting "Mom has covid" and then an hour later, the hospital, and then an hour later, ventilator and then by the next morning she was gone. That's how fast it was, and that's part of why I get so angry at people who still-_STILL! ALMOST THREE YEARS LATER! SIX MILLION PEOPLE DEAD!!--don't take it seriously.)

Anyway. So my friend passed, and her daughter plays ACNH, and at the time, there were no funerals going on. So she had a funeral for her on her island. I can still go to her island any time I wish, and visit her grave there. I was able to bring flowers.

I know it sounds ridiculous but ACNH was huge for a lot of people back then.

I still play it too, because they did this update where you can design homes for hundreds of different characters, and they come with certain requirements or preferences. I've always loved any kind of game where you can design and decorate things. This really hits my "dollhouse" sweet spot.

HEY I still don't remember what it was I really wanted to write about this morning!

EDIT: I treated my co-worker on Monday (massage treatment) and she was supposed to treat me tomorrow because we trade. She texted me earlier to say "I wasn't feeling great yesterday, do you mind if we bump it to next week?" and I was like OF COURSE??? Have you MET ME? Then she texted me a few minutes later to tell me she tested positive.

So I treated her Monday, she started to get sick on tuesday. Now we wait to see if I come down with it. :( I was wearing a mask (I always do,) but she wasn't. My room is 10X10 and unventilated.

I know I've been exposed in the same way before, but this one is way more transmissible, so I guess we'll see. Jesus.

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???

2023-01-10T23:10:01Z

What did I used to write? Just day-to-day stuff I guess. It's not like I used to write anything hugely profound or anything, it was mostly "today I blah blah" except I think my life was more exciting back then and I definitely went more places and knew more people.

Today at work, well, our receptionist left last week and we're in the middle of replacing her (she was great, we loved her, she just moved to VA and we hired someone else but then she changed her schedule etc) ANYway, the upstairs garbage hadn't been replaced in a while and someone threw some nasty food in there and it was going bad. You could smell it downstairs though I thought I was the only one (and I'm the only one wearing a mask!) But then Renata came out of her room--Renata is the reflexologist / aesthetician, she's around 69/70 or so and from Poland--she came out of her room spraying some rose spray saying, "I think someone fart, my dear," only she pronounced it "fort" and I just laughed so hard.

I adore Renata, she calls everyone "my dear" and she's so good at her job, you can tell because she's 70 or thereabouts and her skin is pristine. She looks to be around 50.

IDK what else. I started a fanfic like, last SPRING I think, or maybe the beginning of summer, and I just haven't finished it yet and I'm so mad at myself. WTF is this. I used to bang out thousands of words a day, now I get like, 200 and I'm congratulating myself on my focus 😭 How the HELL am I supposed to write my next novel? Thank god I have Blueshift coming after Carnelian, that should save my ass for another few years, ugh.

My shiny new fandom is The Untamed / Mo Dao Zu Shi, but actually the other day--funny thing actually!--out of nowhere I wrote an Inception flash fic. IDK where that came from, the urge just came to me and there it was. Haven't written Inception in years, YEARS. Almost a decade I think.

So anyway I'm trying to write this fic and I have like, 38K words and that's since the summer. Can't believe how stalled I am.

I got into this fandom after I finished my final edits on Carnelian, when I was still with my previous agent Emmy, who told me to take a nice break after writing and editing a novel, so I wouldn't stress about being on submission (which I did anyway.) So I started watching this show that I had wanted to watch back in '20 when it first came out except I was editing then and I knew it would eat my entire brain and distract me. I was right though, so I'm glad I waited.

And I got sucked into the show immediately, and then into the fandom when I started reading episode recaps by this amazing writer who reminded me SO MUCH of my friend spatterdash -- Wait. I don't remember how to do this! spatterdash holy frick. It's been a minute. Anyway, this writer's voice is so freaking much like Spatterdash that my brain substituted her image every time I read her meta. Like: funny, witty, vulgar in exactly the right amount it was UNCANNY.

and that's how I ultimately got into the fandom.

Well, anyway, that's it for today. My goldfish (The Doctor! Wow, I had him back when I was journaling, he's 11 now!) is munching on his expensive aquarium plants beside me. That makes it sound like he's sitting on the sofa beside me, snacking on leaves as I write. His tank is beside the sofa though.

What even is this entry?

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How did I used to do this every day?

2023-01-08T23:50:48Z

I used to love journaling so much, and have so much to say, now it feels overwhelming because, where do I even start? It's just little things today. I can't find a pair of bluetooth headphones that will actually charge. Fascinating stuff.

I have work tomorrow, umm. One of my regular clients got run over by a car, her little legs are just mangled, poor thing. She told me people keep telling her, "It could have been worse, you're lucky" and I'm like "uhhh no, lucky would be if it didn't happen." I hate when people diminish others' trauma.

I've been through a few fandoms since the last time I was seriously journaling, that's always fun, I always need something to pee my pants about.

Let's see, what else what else. Lunar New Year coming up, I'm going to take Callum to Chinatown for that and my anxiety is through the roof because I haven't been on a train or to the city since 2011. Yikes. Plus with the pandemic, I haven't really left the house other than for work, bringing Callum to school, PT, and Target. We're still all fully masking with KN95.

Jeez, imagine going back and telling Past Me that we'd have this global pandemic?

What I should do is actually make more icons, I used to love making icons.

I still have the fan in my main icon up there too. It says "The fan of a floating woman."

Actually, now that Google Translate is a thing, it would be fun to see if that's what she really wrote 😂

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Does this thing still work?

2023-01-08T03:17:05Z

Years and years and I keep telling myself I'm going to start journaling again. One of my wonderful friends said she still uses DW so I thought, IDK, let's see if I can get back into it. Sometimes writing is hard--most times writing is hard!--and I feel under a lot of pressure lately since

OH YES MY BOOK IS GETTING PUBLISHED.

Journal, you're not even familiar with this book. Or, I think, the one that came before it, jeez.

But yeah so that has made me sort of freeze up to the point where i can't even really force out a decent-length fanfic. Like I'm at this point where I can write a few hundred words and feel super proud of myself because I managed. Ugh hate that for me.

IDK what else to say. I haven't signed on here in years. Callum is 9. We're still in a pandemic. Auntie Kau'i passed two years ago (almost to the day) that loss was very hard for me, almost as hard as losing LaoShir. I had knee surgery and lost most of my motion so I feel like Hula and Kung Fu are in the past for me. Every dancer dies twice, right? Spencer and Tash got married. Celia abandoned her kids 2 1/2 years ago and her sister has custody of the two youngest. Empress / Raquel? Married, with a kid of her own. Wild. Gold Dragon? Nurse practitioner now.

I don't think I've even written in this journal since we got two "new" dogs, "new" is in quotes because it was almost 5 years ago.

Time sucks.

Ah. There's no way to add gifs here, shit.

But... yeah, getting my book published, DREAM.

I really should write that fanfic, actually. Just bang out a few words, they don't have to be perfect, I'm not pitching it to anyone. In fact if this works out, I never have to pitch or query any book, ever again. Whew.

Let's see if I can really get back into the habit!

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I miss journaling

2017-12-19T02:47:23Z

I miss it even though I have nothing good to report at the end of 2017. I was watching this achingly good version of O Holy Night by Willie K and Makaha Sons, so beautiful, and I just started to think about uncle John.

So. Sano died a few days ago. I had him for 14 and a half years. I was journaling daily when I adopted him, and I wrote down the whole thing. It seems like yesterday, sorry for the cliche. He was 16 and a half, and he died in his bed overnight after a few hours of vestibular (which is typically not a big deal. He's had it before and it's not dangerous, so...?) But 16 and a half, in his sleep - I guess it doesn't get a lot better than that.

And Haku has been gone for 7 months. I wasn't even done crying about him every day. He was young, and it was sudden. Like, seconds.

I guess I'm depressed because if I went back and told the me that started journaling on LJ all those years ago that my Gran and Dad would die within 3 months of each other, and uncle John the next year, and a big chunk of what I'd considered a decent family would split up, and then? In 2016 Lao Shir would die (also pretty suddenly,) on the day that Haku was diagnosed with the cancer that would NOT end up killing him but would cost me yet another $10K, and that Sano would follow him soon. And David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Leonard Cohen, Carrie Fisher, Chris Cornell?? WTF??? would all be gone? And I'm in total poverty and can't afford, never mind Kung Fu, but like, even new clothes half the time? And the book I worked so hard on won't even sell!

Well actually, if you told me that, but also told me "however if you change even one terrible thing, you wouldn't have your son," then obviously I would do every second the exact same way.

But still. I mean, it's bullshit. It's a lot, right? Maybe I'm just all scraped up over Sano--it hasn't even been a week yet--but I keep thinking back to those years when everyone was alive, and people were still together, and my dogs were young and I was young.

Sometimes it just sucks.

Do have a listen to that song, though.

And here's to 2018 being, of not better, then at least not worse, jesus.

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la_belle_laide @ 2017-05-09T22:07:00

2017-05-10T02:10:18Z

I'd give so much right now to pet Haku again. I would scratch his neck and behind his ears and put my face on top of his head because he always smelled nice. And after a few seconds he would put his nose on my arm or my sleeve and take a big breath with his cold nose. He could twitch his nose to both sides. He would press his head between your knees when he got stressed, we used to say "Haku has to plug in and recharge."

I can't believe he's gone. Every time he had to go to the vet, or had a seizure, I would tell him "I'm right here. I'm with you every step of the way." It was the last thing I said to him last night right before he died.

I had to tell Callum when he woke up first thing in the morning. I watched his sweet little face crumble as he looked over to where Haku's bed used to be. Then he climbed into my lap and cried quietly for about fifteen minutes. He keeps asking me why things have to die, and if we'll ever be happy again.

The well of grief has so many angles, and it just seems bottomless.

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Hello Dreamwidth, glad you're not Russian or whatever!

2017-04-09T19:14:49Z

I could talk more about 2016 constantly at the doctor for this that and the other; I could go back into my head and rethink how devastated I still am about Leonard Cohen and Carrie Fisher (WTF? WTF? WTMFF? I'm not over it) or about “President T****” and how much debt I'm still in from Haku's surgeries and this really ill-advised trip to Disney (that I planned BEFORE last year's surgeries) and my own anxiety, and anxiety about leaving the dogs again when we go, or that that the town canceled my summer Hula class (that I was going to get paid nicely for :/ ) and how much I still miss Kung Fu and my friends and, and, and.

But, damn it, no. It's April and this is Dreamwidth and a fresh start, so!

I'm taking my soon-to-be four year old to Disneyworld next month, and how awesome is that? Hashtag blessed, that's how awesome.

It's going to be 70 degrees next week??

There's planets? TRAPPIST-7 exists and that is so rad!

I recently got the most excellent fanart from a fanfic I wrote ages ago.

My book is out on submission! If you had told me five years ago that I'd be the lady who lives by the sea, about to take her 4 year old to Disney, waiting to hear back from her agent about her book that's being pitched to Random Penguin right now? I mean I'd about have DIED, you know?

I've been cleaning the yard – this is good. I haven't done it since before Callum was born, because I just couldn't; there was no time, no way to get it done. But now he's almost 4, and I can take him outside and he'll mostly play with his toys while I cut down vines and rake leaves and shit. It's hard work, I mean – like really super hard, because I let all of this go for about 5 years and it's a jungle of bittersweet and wisteria. I don't mind the wisteria except it eats everything in its path. Bittersweet is an asshole, I straight up plain hate it. So this is a real shit show and it's not even a quarter of the way done. And I have to cover myself and Callum in IR3535 (tick repellent) because Lyme and Powassan and RMSF are super real, and all the crawling around in Tick Country freaks me TF out, and the bending and twisting to get the roots up are kind of hurting my back. But it's not as bad as I thought – and I actually feel better? Like, less pain in other places, idk. I haven't moved in so long.

I really wish I hadn't read this article about a lady dying from an abdominal aneurism while running a marathon, because I was thinking about starting to jog again. I have to do something. I miss Kung Fu. There's a school about 30 minutes away and I talk to the Sifu on Instagram every time he posts something. “Oh, I remember that form!” “Broadsword, my fave!” “I love that drill!” and he's always like “COME DOWN AND TRAIN, WE WANT YOU,” but the money doesn't exist in this universe or any parallel universe.

Someday, though. Really, someday.

It's weird how these days you have to second guess everyone like, “but how awful would it be if I went there and made friends and then found out they'd voted for T****?” This is a real issue. Isn't that terrible?

Well anyway, the weather is about 60 today, and 70s for the next 3 days! I have to work, but that's cool; I can get outside when I come home. Do more yardwork, take some time sitting on the deck with Callum and the dogs, blowing bubbles, listening to music, taking pics. Disney in a few weeks, and then summer and those glorious beach days after that.

And yeah I'm always afraid of what comes next – with two old dogs, negative money, various other dramas. But I used to deal with all of my shit way better, I think. When I look back at my old LJ, like before Gran and Dad passed? I totally dealt with my shit way better. So I'm going to try to get there again for sure.

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