Marinating in Memories

I have told this story so many times, I decided it was time to formally document it on the internet.

This is the story of the time I had to discard my bridesmaid dress in a Hollywood Video bathroom.

The year was 2006.

I traveled to Austin, TX to be a bridesmaid in my best friend’s wedding. It was July in Texas, and very hot. I have since learned that high levels of humidity and heat cause me, um, some minor health problems.

I developed a headache not long after arriving, and it grew in intensity over the course of the wedding weekend. Unfortunately, on the day of the ceremony, the power went out in the church as a result of a storm. To phrase it another way, there was no air conditioning during a wedding ceremony in July. In Texas.

One of the other bridesmaids noted later that she thinks she blacked out during the ceremony and isn’t sure how she remained standing.

By the time we arrived at the reception, my headache was a full-blown migraine. I could barely sit up. I was unwell.

I did make it through the reception, but still feel sad that I wasn’t able to enjoy the celebration with my dearest friends.

A few other bridesmaids and I got into an SUV or van of some sort, so the bride’s sister could take us to a hotel. Not long after we start driving away, I start to feel…

Nauseous.

I tell her sister that she needs to pull over, because I am going to throw up.

She tells me something along the lines of, “The hotel isn’t too far away. You can probably hold it until we get there.”

I open my mouth to tell her that’s not really how this works, but instead of words,

Soooo much vomit comes out.

I was still wearing my bridesmaid dress, so I try to sort of gather the skirt into a type of bowl to collect the…contents…of what is coming out of me.

Her sister decided she should, in fact, pull over. The first place she came upon was a Hollywood Video.

I get out of the car, and one of the other bridesmaids pulled my luggage out of the trunk. She followed me into the Hollywood Video. I carried my Skirt Bowl of Vomit straight to the bathroom, even though I had no intentions of making a purchase at the establishment.

I manage to change into different clothes, and clean myself up a bit. But I was faced with a decision.

My soiled dress was in a heap on the floor. I thought, what happens now? Am I going to pack this into my luggage, and fly back to Nashville with it? And then what? Will I take it to a dry cleaner and say, “Soooo, I threw up all over this. Can you clean it? Let me know when it’s ready…”

No. No, I am not going to do that.

I decided to throw away the dress from my best friend’s wedding. I stuffed it into the knee-high trash can. I leave the Hollywood Video without so much as a word to the teenager manning the checkout register.

When I got back to the car, I learned that one of the other bridesmaids had cleaned up everything that I had done in the car. I am not sure how, or with what. That’s none of my business.

I like to think about this from the perspective of the kid working in the store. I imagine that he’s out there in the world. Every now and then, I bet someone asks him, “What’s the weirdest thing that ever happened to you at work?”

And the image that flashes across his mind is of me. Little old me. Opening the door to his place of work, wearing a formal dress, absolutely saturated in vomit. I silently headed to the bathroom, and he had no context for what was happening. What did he think was happening?

And after I left, he asked himself, what happened to the dress?

It may not have been until he was closing the store that he happened upon it as he was emptying the trash.

For me, that Hollywood Video was where I left behind a memory. For him, it was a pretty bad day at work, with some things that didn’t smell too good.

It lives on in our memories, but probably for different reasons.

The real heroes of this story:

I’m Not Crazy

If you need to rage about a self-imposed mild inconvenience because the important things that actually matter to you are forever outside your ability to influence or change in any way, this one’s for you.

I’m going to tell you about how I am routinely prevented from giving myself a little treat in the form of a delicious beverage.

I stopped drinking caffeine for about 7-8 years. I stopped for two reasons:

1) I have been sensitive to migraine triggers since elementary school, and the caffeine put me on a migraine roller coaster

2) Caffeinated beverages also happened to be the primary way I consumed sugar, and it was such an easy way to get rid of a lot of sugar. Sugar is also a migraine trigger. Since I was drinking sugar, and not consuming it alongside fiber or protein, it went straight to my head.

I’m not a scientist. I know it didn’t go **straight** to my head. But it did give me a headache. The tirade I’m about to go on will be less enjoyable for you if you’re fact-checking.

So when I went on a trip to Seattle in the spring of 2018, there had not been any caffeine in my daily life for years. I like to experience the local culture, and part of the local culture in Seattle is coffee. We went to a different local coffee place every day, and it was all so good. But it wasn’t until I tried one specific cup of coffee that I decided to quit decaf forever and return to the world of migraines. And anxiety!

This part is going to be a little offensive considering I was in Seattle, and I live in Nashville – both cultural epicenters for coffee enthusiasts.

I had a nitro cold brew with sweet cream at Starbucks. My sister told me to order it exactly like that. “Hi, can I have a nitro cold brew with sweet cream?”

It was the most delicious, smooth, velvety cup of coffee. Since it was a cold brew, it wasn’t bitter. It didn’t get watered down by ice because it was cooled by the nitro. And the sweet cream only had 4g of sugar. For Starbucks – that is not a lot of sugar!

I was hooked. It was so good, I came out of caffeine retirement. I started ordering it exclusively whenever I went to Starbucks back in Nashville. I still like visiting local places, but sometimes I just want to drive through somewhere. I didn’t know it would become the bane of my existence.

There are a couple factors that make this a difficult drink order. Apparently.

1) The nitro machine breaks. Constantly. I can’t tell if the baristas are engaged in sabotage because they hate using it, or if the machine is poorly designed. But I am told regularly that it is out of order. This happens at least 40% of the time, but emotionally speaking it is 80% of the time. And it seems that there is only one person in Nashville who knows how to fix it. That mysterious person travels from store to store fixing the nitro machine. It takes a week or more every time it breaks. A few weeks ago, all three Starbucks in my range of driving had broken nitro machines. I know this because I went to all three locations. I call ahead sometimes to spare myself the drama. If I don’t call ahead, I end up ordering (“Can I have a nitro cold brew with sweet cream?”) and then quietly whispering “Please say yes” while bracing for the worst.

2) Cold brew is more difficult to make than regular coffee. With regular coffee, you throw it in the machine and it’s ready to go not too long after. Cold brew takes a few hours to make. It has to steep, like tea. These are the things I’m forced to research online when I am told, “We are out of cold brew today.” I’m not clear on how a business that primarily sells coffee can run out of coffee by 8am, so that’s when I start to feel like it’s sabotage.

The latest layer of difficulty is that my local baristas suddenly, after five years, don’t understand what I am ordering. Here is how the conversation goes.

Me: Can I have a grande nitro cold brew with sweet cream?

Barista: Okay, one vanilla sweet cream nitro cold brew

Me: No

Barista, Oh, you want a nitro cold brew with sweet cream?

Me: …yep….thanksssss……

I have to do this every time now. I never had to until a few weeks ago. You might wonder, what’s the difference? Well let me tell you. A vanilla sweet cream nitro cold brew comes with two pumps of vanilla syrup, for an additional 10g of sugar. The nitro cold brew doesn’t have any pumps of vanilla syrup or any pumps of anything.

I could roll up to the window and order a grande cold brew with one pump of hazelnut, one scoop of vanilla bean powder, a splash of half & half, and a pack of stevia, or a small campout cold brew with sugar free chocolate macademia nut and sugar free vanilla with only sugar free syrup and no chocolate milk, just regular half & half, and please make it half sweet

And they wouldn’t miss a beat.

But “grande nitro cold brew with sweet cream” throws them for a loop.

I used to order a “grande nitro cold brew with a light splash of sweet cream” but it created so many problems, I stopped. Just give me a gallon of sweet cream. It’s fine.

I drive away from Starbucks asking myself, why is this so hard?

I have a simple order. I am the ideal customer. It is not complicated. I don’t hold the line up. I say please and thank you. If it takes a long time, I say, no problem. I can wait. I try to give the benefit of the doubt. The baristas are doing their best. Sometimes things take a long time. Sometimes they run out of ingredients. Sometimes they’ve had a hard day, and they’re tired.

But after a while, I start to think – is this consideration a two way street? I am also tired. I just want a nitro cold brew with sweet cream.

People say you never know what the person next to you is going through. So I don’t leave bad reviews on google or anywhere else. (A blog essay about their customer service failures is obviously a totally different thing). I don’t want anyone to lose their job over it. I literally just want a nitro cold brew with sweet cream.

This is what my prayers have sounded like lately.

“I have asked You for a bunch of things that You have said No to. Repeatedly, for years, No, No, No. I get it. My requests require too many miracles. You can’t intervene in the housing market, so I don’t get to own a home. Real shame about the developers and flippers, but that’s capitalism, baby. I get it. You designed female bodies to only carry pregnancies in a very specific and limited window, and it’s just too late. The eggs are basically gone at this point. It’s just science. You can’t give me a husband, or even a date, because You would have to travel back in time and make sure christian men of my generation (oh yes, it’s the christian men) are not socialized to believe that Skinny Women Are Best. Time travel is out of the question, and there are too many points of entry for this mindset. I understand. So, can I just have this? Can I just have a nitro cold brew with sweet cream? I have seen what You’ve done for other people, and I feel like I’m being generous in pretending like my requests are too impossible. I have eyes. I’ve seen the 23 year olds buying homes right out of college. Miracles are impossible, wink wink. But a nitro cold brew with sweet cream doesn’t require a miracle. It requires four things: a cup, coffee, cream, and the nitro machine. Why are You saying no?”

Maybe I am pushing the boundaries of what it means to wrestle with God. Maybe it borders on disrespect and ungratefulness. But I have been praying for other people my whole life. Back in elementary school, when I was having CT scans and vomiting at school because of migraines, I started praying for unknown strangers every time I heard a siren. “Jesus, please help whoever is in trouble to be okay.” I still do that. I’m almost 40 years old, and I can’t let a siren go by without a prayer. If strangers online ask for prayer, I literally pray with my brain for them. I pray for homeless people when it rains or snows. I bought a blanket from a company that says they donate blankets to homeless people with the proceeds, and sometimes I pray for my “blanket twin” – which is not even a thing. I pray for a figment of my imagination. Sometimes I drive by a hospital and pray that everyone, every single last patient inside, feels better today. I have been praying nonsense prayers for most of my life, for everyone except me.

I made a deal with Jesus, recently. Well, I have to assume that He accepted the terms. He agreed **glares heavenward** that I get to be insane when I pray. Everyone else can think I am crazy and negative and petulant, but He will not. I keep saying, “I’m not crazy, remember? We agreed.” I’ve made no promises in return. He gets nothing out of the deal. I just get a mental refuge. A place where I don’t have to perform thankfulness when perfectly reasonable requests go unanswered. And none of that, “well sometimes the answer is No or Wait” B.S. If it’s not a yes, it’s unanswered. We all know this. I can tell the truth about that, I can be mad about coffee, I can cry when my packages aren’t delivered, I can be anxious when things are hard at work. And I can ask for perfectly reasonable things without pretending they’re impossible, and I don’t have to smile when I don’t get them.

I’m not crazy, we agreed.

I Climbed A Pyramid

I was on a zoom call earlier and my boss had a picture of a pyramid as his background. As one does. He likes to put pictures of his world travels as his background in meetings, unknowingly inspiring us to drop what we’re doing and take a vacation.

He told me a little bit about it, and then I told him about the time I climbed a pyramid.

The friends I climbed it with swore we would spend the rest of our lives declaring “I CLIMBED A PYRAMID” every chance we get, but it doesn’t come up as often as we hoped.

We were visiting a friend of ours who lived in Mexico City. We rode a bus for an hour or more outside the city until we reached Teotihuacan.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was bigger than that. The size of a pyramid is hard to describe. It wasn’t precious or beautiful or ornate. It was massive, overwhelming, and took up so much space it was hard to take a picture of it unless you were standing half a mile away.

It is so sturdy after all these years, they still let people climb to the top of it. It can handle the constant traffic of sightseers from all over the world, but that was before people only did things in order to get a good picture for Instagram. (Hi, it’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me).

We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant that sits in its shadow, and then decided to climb. I’m not sure the combination of enchiladas and strenuous exercise would pair well in my nearly 40-year-old body, but it was fine when I was 23.

Have you ever climbed a pyramid? Have you? To my young mind and body it sounded like an average day. I’ve climbed stairs before, it must be like that.

It…

Was not like that.

This pyramid had a few ledges on the way up that you could rest on, presumably because our ancient friends knew their limitations better than I. One does not simply ascend a pyramid. I had to stop and rest halfway up because I felt like I was going to faint. (Maybe the enchiladas weren’t a good choice, even for a youth). I told my friends I didn’t think I could go further, so they should continue without me and I would wait for them to come back down.

I sat on that ledge and told myself that halfway up a pyramid is still an enjoyable experience, still had beautiful views, and is still a halfway interesting story to tell about my vacation. Sure, my friends would get to the top. But here I am on a pyramid, and that’s not nothing.

I was exhausted and had no energy, so the story I was telling myself made sense. And for the period of time I sat there, it was true.

But then I caught my breath.

I thought, I am sitting on a pyramid. I am halfway to the top. I will never be here again. If I don’t climb to the top of this thing, I will regret it for the rest of my life. I don’t want to climb half a pyramid. I want to climb a whole pyramid.

So I climbed the rest of the way, and I made it to the top. I don’t know of a more poetic way to say it than that.

My friends were standing ON TOP OF A PYRAMID (I’m sorry, it has to be written this way, we agreed), and when I reached them, they screamed “YOU MADE IT!!”

I don’t remember how long we were up there. I just remember us saying “WE ARE ON TOP OF A PYRAMID” a thousand times.

We all made it to the top, but their story is different from mine. They climbed the same number of steps. They were also tired. They were also digesting Mexican food. But for some reason, it took me longer. I had to dig a little deeper.

I have climbed so many metaphorical pyramids in my life at this point, and it always goes like this. I watch people get to the top while I gasp for air at the halfway point. When I arrive at the destination, I’m not sure anyone understands what I went through to get there. We’re looking at the same scenery, but I can still feel the struggle in my bones. The dirt is still under my fingernails from clawing my way to the top, while the breeze is blowing in your hair as your legs hang freely over the side.

A pity party is not what I am going for, nor do I want to diminish anyone else’s struggle. It’s just something I’ve learned about myself. I might need to stop and rest more than other people do. I might need to recover for a while at the halfway point. People might go on without me while I do, especially if I tell them to. But I climbed that damn pyramid.

I’m the only one who witnessed me getting on my hands and knees and pushing myself to a standing position. I’ve seen myself do a lot of things that no one else has seen.

I think there are times I’m grateful for the halfway vantage point and the knowledge it provides that I am scrappy, determined, and strong. You can’t really know yourself until you’ve nearly passed out on the side of a pyramid surrounded by strangers. I have thrown up in a lot of unfortunate places (like my best friend’s wedding; alas, that is another story for another time), but off the side of a pyramid – I am quite happy to leave that off the list. Can you even imagine. The number of times I have prayed “God please don’t let me throw up right now” and then I immediately threw up. I digress.

Transitioning seamlessly back to this eloquent blog post,

There are also times when I wish I could just keep up with everyone else. Or that I could ask, “Can you sit with me on this ledge? Even if this is the best I can do?” But I don’t want to keep my friends from getting to the top. So at the very least, I hope you’ll meet me there and scream “YOU MADE IT!” when I do.

Here are pictures from the time I CLIMBED A PYRAMID

Something Chaotic, Something New

I can’t write like I used to.

I can’t seem to organize my thoughts, and say what I need to.

My ability to communicate came into question.

A neural pathway formed. It’s more like a dead end than a pathway.

I moved into a new apartment the same week that my office shutdown for the pandemic.

It was chaos, trying to set up an office space and a living space, all at once.

I ended up with piles of things in all the rooms.

Including a table by my front door. I just put things on the table, and that became the table where I put things. Any things at all. They went on the table.

But I’ve noticed something lately.

I’ve been shutting cabinets that I used to leave open.

Wiping smudges off mirrors that I never noticed or cared about before.

I put my salt, pepper, and oil in a basket by the stove, instead of just on the counter.

I unsubscribed from podcasts that I never listen to, and added some that I always listened to but had never subscribed to.

I put my sweaters in a box, because I’m no longer in denial that winter is gone.

I threw out the office chair that was broken, with special permission from the office. It was a really old chair. The cute, sheek chairs at the office gave me back pain, so they let me keep an ugly, old chair.

But it was broken. I didn’t have back pain, but I had to be careful not to lean back too far or it would fall over.

Now that I’ve been remote for a couple years, I ordered a new chair that’s right for me.

I’m thinking about buying a trash can. Don’t worry about where I’ve been putting the trash. Trash is trash, wherever you put it.

Can I get an amen.

I moved a blue chair into the living room, along with a bit of an odd decorative vase I can’t decide if I love or hate. I bought a table, and the things go inside of it now. They’re still there, the things. But they have a specific place.

I bought an ottoman. It doesn’t exactly match the pillow on the chair, but it doesn’t not match.

Something old

Something new

Nothing borrowed

Something blue

I am organizing my things. And my thoughts.

And soon, I might have something to say.

I Like This Song

March 13th

March 13, 2020

I arrived at work and read an e-mail telling me that we would be working from home as soon as our local IT department provided us with the necessary equipment to do so.

What? How is that going to work? They never let us work from home.

The IT manager stopped in my department and I said…how long are we doing this? He said at least two weeks, maybe a couple months.

Two months?

He gave me a wireless adapter because I did not have a company laptop. I had to take the desktop tower, keyboard, mouse, and double monitor home to my new apartment that I had just moved into three days earlier.

My manager helped me carry it all to my car, plus some supplies. We stood in the parking lot and just said, “This is so weird. I guess…I’ll see you soon I hope?”

It has been a year.

March 13, 2021

I did not sleep well last night. I think I have a pinched nerve somewhere in my neck or shoulder. I only slept an hour or so. I woke up shaking from the pain.

I forced myself to eat small bites of a granola bar, because I need food inside me. I have somewhere I need to be. Don’t throw it up. If anyone would throw up right now, it would be you. Deep breaths.

I called my Dad in tears, “Do you think it’s okay for me to still go to my appointment? I’m not sure I can stand.”

I walk around a bit, per his fatherly advice, and decide I can drive.

There is an accident on the interstate, delaying my arrival. Of course this would happen today.

I almost missed the exit because my map app just stopped giving me instructions in the middle of the route. That never happens.

I park in the designated area. A team of people points me in the right direction. Go through that door. Go across the crosswalk. Go down the escalator.

I join the group of people society has shrugged their shoulders at. We did our best. We asked everyone to do their best. For us.

Someone named Brandie reviewed my information. She pointed me to another man at another table. “How do you feel?” he asks. “Grateful,” I said while choking back tears.

I didn’t expect to be emotional. But it was all of the people I saw. And because I realized I had been waiting so long for this and now here I was. Today.

Today I received my first dose of the covid-19 vaccine.

Covid-19 Diaries, 11/1/2020

There have been over 231,000 covid-19 deaths in the United States

There have been over 9.2 million covid-19 cases in the United States

My county has had 34k cases and 352 deaths

Cases and deaths are surging everywhere. Doctors say it will get worse over the winter because people will be forced indoors because of the weather.

Some political notes:

A couple days ago outside of Austin, a caravan of trump supporters surrounded a Biden tour bus. The reports say the caravan forced it off the road, damaged a staffer’s car, and the Biden campaign canceled a couple events for security reasons.

I watched some of the videos. I didn’t see the bus run off the road, but I did see a truck ram into a car that matches pictures of the staffer’s damaged car.

Trump posted a video of the caravan following the bus and said “I love Texas!”

He encouraged this behavior. It’s such weird behavior! What is the point of following a tour bus and having dozens of vehicles surround it? What’s the point? It’s just weird. That doesn’t happen in normal elections. And I’m concerned that he encourages this kind of thing, which means crazy people will keep behaving this way, and maybe become more violent.

His supporters would counter and say that democratic protestors are violent. To me it feels different. Protesting is a historical thing that happens all the time. Surrounding a bus on the highway? What is that? Also, Biden doesn’t encourage protestors to be violent or tweet videos of them and say “I love this!”

Election day is on the 3^rd. Two days from now. Hard to believe it’s already here. It’s been such a long four years. It feels like so much is at stake.

Trump’s campaign keeps waging court battles to prevent states from counting absentee votes after the 3^rd, even though that has always been regular practice. There are even some republicans in Houston trying to throw out over 100k votes that people cast via drive-thru because of the virus. They’re trying to invalidate the drive-thru process of voting. It’s so blatant. Drives me insane.

So we will see what happens on the 3^rd. Is all of this just part of election drama, or is something dramatic going to happen on the 3^rd? Will it all just transpire as normal, and we’ll find out all this arguing was just for media buzz and ratings? I guess we’ll see.

Is Jesus Even Real?

It’s tempting in these last few weeks before the election to list out my opinions on why I am voting for Biden/Harris. I am a very informed person, and I have strong opinions on a lot of issues: Immigration/Refugees, Criminal Justice Reform, Tax policy, Foreign policy, Healthcare, LGBTQ rights, all of it. All the opinions.

My opinions are not formed by memes or tweets, but by books and articles and podcasts. I don’t own a television, so no – they aren’t formed by cable news either.

But the thing is, I don’t think a lack of information is anyone’s problem this year.

I have not felt division like this before. Not just between republicans and democrats, but within myself.

The division I feel is the cognitive dissonance between what I was raised to believe (as a Christian and as an American) and the people who taught me those things behaving as though none of it is true. It feels like someone lied to me.

I am going to try and explain what I mean. It’s going to read like I am having an argument with an imaginary person that I keep calling “you.” So, let me define who “you” is.

– My parents and family

– The bible study leaders and ministers who educated me in the Christian faith

– My Christian friends

– Basically everyone

Dear You,

I am very confused.

Many of my friends have stopped believing in Jesus, and part of the reason is because of how many Christians have thrown out our beliefs in order to support Trump. The faith of a generation, or two, has been thrown into chaos because of…

you.

There have been problems with the republican platform all along, as there have been problems with the democratic platform all along. What there hasn’t been all along is your apparent delight at things you taught me to believe were evil.

You taught me that Jesus said we are to love God and love our neighbor. That’s what you taught me.

But when I hear you talk about immigrants, for example, I don’t hear love. I hear you saying they’re going to steal your job. Even if someone steals your job, you taught me that God is our provider. I also hear you repeat some really nasty rhetoric from the president about how immigrants are criminals and murderers.

So I have to ask, if we are supposed to love our neighbors, why do you talk about immigrants this way, as though they are your enemies?

And you answer, well, Jesus didn’t mean that. He didn’t mean we are supposed to love our neighbors from other countries, just like, the neighbor next door. When Jesus said to welcome the stranger, He didn’t mean it like that.

Hmm, ok. Well, that seems kind of selective, and it kind of sounds like you’re saying we don’t have to love people or be welcoming. Is that what you’re saying? I can’t tell from your language what Jesus thinks. Does he think we are supposed to love our neighbor, or not? Your love has more caveats than His.

How am I supposed to figure out how to treat other people if “love your neighbor” doesn’t really mean “love your neighbor”?

It seems like you are telling me now that my guiding principle is supposed to be “love myself.” Your gospel is to seek protection for yourself, your rights, your religion, your way of life, your neighborhood, and everyone else can just die or rot in prison or go bankrupt or starve for all you care.

At this point, you might be tempted to interject that President Obama had really terrible immigration policies, too.

I know. Have you met me? I know. I read more than every person I know, so yeah, I know that.

I’m not talking about Obama. I’m not talking about Trump. I’m talking about you.

I know you have the words “but abortion!” on your tongue. “But Allison, how is abortion loving your neighbor, huh?”

You have never heard me say that abortion is good for our country, but I have heard you say that rejecting immigrants is. So have a seat.

You might be bristling at this assessment of your beliefs, because you think you do care about people. I am going by your words. I believed the words you taught me as a child or in friendship, and I believe your words now. I thought I could trust you and your words.

You tell me no one should walk away from Jesus because of your words, they should just “look at Jesus.”

Well, that also turns out to be a problem because of you, again.

If what you taught me is true, the way Jesus makes Himself known and visible now is partly through His people. Through you.

If you tell me that outlawing abortion is more important than providing healthcare, that tells me Jesus sees people dying from disease and shrugs His shoulders.

If you tell me that people who are poor should just work harder (at their multiple jobs every day of the week), it makes me imagine them drowning in quicksand while Jesus rolls His eyes as they ask for help.

If you tell me “the democrats” are going to shut all the churches down, it tells me Jesus is scared and weak, which is hard to reconcile with the power you tell me can raise the dead.

Is that really the god you were made in the image of? I think even Narcissus would look away from that reflection.

I’ve tried to separate your “political” views from our shared faith, but it’s getting to be really hard. I don’t know how to dismiss your beliefs about Jesus when you tell me that loving my neighbor isn’t as important as religious freedom, but somehow trust your beliefs about Jesus when I ask for encouragement or prayer.

You’re asking me to drink poisonous wine before we bow our heads together, and you leave me to figure out how to vomit the poison but keep the wine.

I need you to put the poison away. Put it away. Stop telling me it’s good to discriminate, or that it’s good to turn people away when they need help, or that it’s good for people to wait too long to go to the doctor because they don’t have insurance, and on and on.

I don’t need to make a complete list, because I believe…you already know. I believe that what you taught me is still in there somewhere.

I don’t like how this administration has warped your mind and heart. You say things I never would have believed would come out of your mouth.

Did you lie to me about who Jesus is, or will you stop this madness?

It’s not a fair dichotomy. Life is more complicated than this question.

But there is a graveyard full of faith that people have had to bury because there was too much poison, and it was lethal. I don’t want my faith to be next.

I am not trying to manipulate you into voting a certain way. I am not saying if you vote for Trump I’m quitting Christianity.

I am begging you to stop serving me poison. Stop justifying everything that man says and does. It is poison. You are not breathing clean air.

I don’t think voting for Biden will fix the world, but I do think that you not voting for Trump will provide some relief for the people who can’t make sense of the way you twist the teachings of Jesus to justify your support for him.

If you can’t vote for Biden, please vote for literally anyone else. Vote for me. Consider the harm your support for Trump has caused to me and make a different choice.

Covid-19 Diaries, Vol. 1

3/18/20

I ate all of my Cheddar Kangaroos. It is my second day working from home during the COVID-19 outbreak. I have enough food to last a couple of weeks , but I still shouldn’t have eaten all the kangaroos yet. My only other snack option now is beet crackers, and I definitely should have bought cookies instead of those. In a moment of impulse and maybe panic, I did buy some pepperoni. I’m not sure why. All of that is gone too.

I have never worked from home before. The fact that the company I work for made this drastic choice (which required me to take my desktop, two monitors, keyboard, mouse, and headset home from the office) is definitely worrisome. I have no idea if my job will survive this pandemic. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

I think as of today there are over 6000 confirmed cases, and speculation that there are actually many more cases because we haven’t been testing people.

3/19/20

I think the cases of the virus in the US have exceeded 10,000 today.

Every little thing in my body has the potential to scare me. Am I hot because I have a fever? I don’t want to check. Does my throat feel weird because of the virus? Is my body aching because symptoms are starting, or because I’ve been moving into a new apartment and I’m sore?

3/21/20

More cities are telling people to “shelter in place.” I have no idea how any businesses or jobs will survive. It seems cruel to lay people off right now. Then they/we will be without health insurance while a virus is infecting people. Predictions are that up to 70% of americans will get infected if we don’t take any measures (like social distancing). There are a lot of numbers floating around. There’s a lot of info floating around.

My sister showed me an article that says people with type O blood are more resistant to the virus or severe problems, and people with type A fare worse. She has asthma and has type A blood, so I am worried about her. But at the end of the day, no one really knows anything about this virus. How it spreads, why it spreads, how to make it stop – it’s all a mystery.

I went to the grocery store today. There is still no toilet paper. I haven’t seen any in over a week. I have some right now, but will probably need more on my next trip.

Everything is weird.

3/22/20

Nashville’s mayor put a “shelter in place” rule into effect for 14 days. But he said we could still go outside, so fool that I am, I decided to.

I started down a walking path, and immediately twisted my ankle. And had to walk 10 minutes back to my apartment. This is why I go to the gym. It never attacks me like nature does.

3/26/20

The US has the most cases in the world now, at about 82k the last time I heard, and over 1k deaths.

3/27/20

[Redacted]

4/7/20

Excerpts from my SisterGroupText today

Me: I am trying to go to the store less. Because it’s annoying with gloves, and now a mask.

Emily: Where did you even get gloves from?

Me: I actually have gloves for handling raw meat since I had salmonella once. I have a whole routine for the store. One hand only touches the cart, and the other only grabs things. And then at the register the things hand pays. And then I go outside, unload with things hand, take the cart back with cart hand. And then remove the gloves, and use hand sanitizer. There is no cross contamination.

Emily: Very methodical.

Me: The cart seems dirtiest to me because dozens of people touch it, but things are touched by an employee and maybe a few other people. Cart hand also opens freezer doors. At the end of this, I will obviously have OCD.

Emily: Won’t we all. We’ll never be the same.

Sarah: I feel like I already do. Or at least I did until I found out how you grocery shop.

Me: I have never disinfected my keys, but I think about it.

Sarah: I went to Sonic earlier and got ice cream, and immediately wiped every cup and spoon (in plastic) down with hand sanitizer, then came home and wiped them all down with soap and water, and used the sanitizer twice on my hands and washed them and also put the spoons in the cups using my teeth because my hands were contaminated from the plastic whence they came

Me: I would have used my own spoons, but you do you.

4/15/20

I woke up at 6am today, so I could drive to a walmart to try to buy toilet paper. I only have a couple rolls left. It just so happened that Nashville had some kind of freeze last night, in the middle of April, so I also had to scrape ice off my car – my least favorite activity.

I went straight to the TP aisle and there were only about 5-6 packs of walmart brand toilet paper. That stuff is like tissue paper, but I had no choice.

I had created a scarf mask by cutting up one of my scarves that I don’t like, and using hair ties to attach it to my ears. It is not easy to breath through. Every breath fogs up my glasses.

The experience was unpleasant so I also bought some mozzarella sticks.

I used to go to the store a few times a week. I would be like, “I want an apple” and just go buy one. What unadulterated bliss.

I also placed an order online with Milk Bar for a tin of 6 cookies, 3 truffles, and one slice of pie that cost $50. With shipping it costs $65. It’s a stupid amount of money for cookies, but I regret nothing.

4/21/20

The financial crisis in 2008 really messed my entire life up. I had graduated about 18 months before, so the job market for me as a recent grad was a disaster. I ended up working at a daycare for three years.

Part of the problem was that I don’t make good first impressions, and job interviews are entirely about impressions. It takes time for people to like me. It is sort of like that frog in boiling water scenario. Except I am the boiling water, slowly turning up my personality. And other people are the frog, but instead of being dead at the end, they…like me. Yeah.  It’s exactly like that.

Why am I talking about slowly killing frogs/winning people over? I had gone back to school in 2018/2019 for a new degree, and wouldn’t you know it: I graduated right before an economic crisis again. I have to try and make good impressions in a competitive and desperate environment again. I applied for a job at my current company back in February. I’ve done a lot of Zoom interviews since then, but wasn’t sure if they would have to freeze hiring right now.

The hiring manager called me tonight and said…I got the job. Which is actually a promotion. The pandemic could still steal it out from under me at any moment, but at least for today, I got the job. I went to school, studied the things, applied for a job, and got it. Finally.

4/24/20

A thing happened last night and today that I feel perfectly captures the tone of politics and the pandemic.

I watched a video, with my own eyes, of Trump starting his daily briefing about the virus. He walked to the podium, and immediately started rambling about weird things. He wondered if we could somehow get UV light/sunlight inside of our bodies to kill the virus, because it works outside the body. He also wondered if maybe we could figure out how to inject disinfectant into our bodies. He said we’d have to ask medical doctors, but it sounds like an interesting idea to him.

There were four types of reactions to this:

1) People made many many many jokes about how insane he is.

2) People made very serious remarks about how unsafe it is to drink bleach.

3) People got very annoyed and said “Trump never said to drink bleach.”

4) Trump said he was being sarcastic, and his press secretary said the media took his comments out of context and needs to stop running such negative headlines.

The problem with the jokes is that there are unfortunately some people who listen to the president, and do what he says. He had recommended a somewhat random drug a few weeks ago, people took it, and it killed them.

The problem with #2 is that the very predictable response is #3. He never used the word “bleach.” He never told anyone to drink anything. It makes it too easy for his supporters to call democrats unfair when they misquote him. And then that gives them a reason to talk about something other than how ridiculous the actual remarks were. Instead, we’re arguing about whether or not the word “bleach” was used instead of just how absurd his actual words were.

And Trump always, always, always tries to blame the media. Anytime they repeat his actual words, he says they’re negative and unfair.

This is how every single discussion about Trump goes. Every issue. Every time.

5/1/20

Last night I nightmared that everyone went back out in public, and I had to go to a church service. I was too anxious to sit in the auditorium, so I sat outside on a chair and hoped to watch the sermon on a screen. But then a group of children sat right in front of me to play, and I thought, “Oh no. Children carry the virus!”

In real life, my a/c broke a couple of days ago. I submitted a maintenance request. They said that because of the virus they’re only handling emergency requests, and a/c isn’t an emergency until it’s over 80 degrees outside. The forecast for the next two days is a high of 85ish. But it’s the weekend, and I have no idea if they fix things on the weekend. It’s my first maintenance request in this apartment. So like, do I have to wear pants all weekend while I wait for him? With no a/c?

The United States has more than a million cases of the virus, and more than 65k deaths now. Some new information: people in their 30s and 40s appear to develop blood clots and have strokes. Isn’t it so weird how I’m having virus nightmares?

Books Books Books

My annual list of books I read is on my book blog, FeedMeAlltheBooks. The list is too long and there are far too many words for any human to read, but here I stand. I read what I read.