• It was inevitable

    I was tooling along in the Mini when I got a warning that I only had 5 miles of fuel left. It caught me completely by surprise. Home was 17 miles away, and the nearest charging station was 4 miles away. Which was great. Until I took a wrong turn and got the “Insufficient charge” message. I yelled NOOOOOOOO until I accepted my fate and pulled into a parking lot with 2 miles left in the “tank”.

    The phone was fully charged, ChatGPT told me I couldn’t use a regular tow truck, the Mini app knew the number for roadside assistance, and the tow truck came in a third of the expected time.

    Barrier 1.

    “You can wait in the truck,” the driver said.

    The bottom of the door was at hip level. I almost didn’t make it the first and fourth time I got in and out of the truck. I was in and out multiple times because of …

    Barrier 2.

    I’ve used three types of on-road charging stations, but these charging stations at the college the dispatch sent us to didn’t take my physical ChargePoint card. So after he showed me how to put all my cards in my phone’s “wallet” (because it would seem I am quaint) we found that we had been sent to a station that wasn’t active. The dots on the app were blue, not green. Because that’s obvious.

    So off we went to the next station, where my physical card worked and charging began immediately and there was much joy even though …

    Barrier 3.

    … it was a level 2 charger, which means it took an hour and a half to get enough charge for the 15 mile drive home.

    And you know, it sounds bad, and it was bad. But I have all kinds of cards in my Apple wallet now, and as long as that first station wasn’t some kind of a trap to grab all my card data, then it was just a learning experience. Not even the worst thing to happen that day.

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  • Weekly Paint Progress: 5/14/2026

    Behold ye the floating buffalo!

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    He was originally:

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    I didn’t want to bother doing the detail in the front or on his fur. It was too boring back in the day. Now it’s the best part.

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  • Again, my face betrays me

    I was watching a friend teach a class recently. Poor thing had a cough, so much so that I walked up during a prolonged hacking fit and gave her a cough drop I’ve had in my purse since last winter. Then I returned to my seat in the back of the room among random women who had already announced they were giggly with exhaustion.

    A few minutes later the giggling was directed at me. I turned my head and the woman to my left snickered, “Your face!”

    I already knew what my face was saying, it was saying, “Oh God, my friend is teaching this class drunk off her tits on cough medicine.” There was just a reeling kind of cadence to her voice. “Not too noticeable,” I told myself.

    “You looked so worried!” my classmate said. “And then you thought no one could tell. And then there was just the touch of a slur and you looked horrified.”

    I primly folded my hands on top of my purse and admitted that perhaps our instructor had overindulged on the cough syrup a bit.

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  • The great misremembering: a breakthrough

    Recently I posted about a conversation I had that could not possibly have happened, and commented that “after this story went from the psych counselor to the psychiatrist, the neurologist wants to have me come in.”

    So I was all mentally prepared for my appointment this coming Friday. I was ready to have the neurologist’s physician’s assistant say, “the memory does weird stuff sometimes” just as everyone else had.

    Then I was in the garage and suddenly, randomly remembered the old days in the nineties when I had my two episodes of depression. One, in which I was A Very Bad Person Per the Unrelenting Voice in My Head, and another in which I was in some way responsible for the war in Bosnia Herzegovina. (Detailed here. I was convinced I was responsible for that conflict. I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. I knew it in the very core of my soul, though. I mean Wikipedia would disagree about my involvement, but I knew the truth. )

    So first depression, hearing voices and guilt, second depression, inserting myself into European wars and guilt. Yesterday it occurred to me that maybe I’m having another delusional depression. A guilt-free depression though: I am notably, exceptionally blameless in this one.

    And they did cut my MS meds in half in January, so it makes sense that my brain chemistry is off.

    I am going with that until Friday, when I meet with the physician’s assistant. He may well say, “Memories do weird stuff sometimes.” I really hope I’m depressed though, otherwise I have no idea what reality is.

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  • Eye contact: the best part of the on-site

    Two teams have merged and I have a new co-worker who shares some of my personality traits. She speaks up about the brutal truths. Of course she prefaces them with a prologue about how we’re all working toward the same goal, she means it with the greatest respect, blah, but still the same honesty.

    We were in entirely different rows on different sides of the auditorium when the speaker mentioned the importance of speaking the truth. We both simultaneously swiveled, looked for each other, made eye contact, nodded, and went back to listening to the presentation.

    It’s especially nice that someone sees me as honest while my memory seems to be lying to me.

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  • TWIL: New version of Cape Fear

    I managed to avoid watching the 1962 film version of Cape Fear by hiding in my Mom’s womb. Once I was out I continued avoiding it until a few years ago, when I saw it as a part of our Film Noir binge.

    Then there was the 1991 remake by Martin Scorsese. I read it was more brutal, more violent, and I don’t know if there were any raw eggs in it, but the ads creeped me out so much that I couldn’t imagine seeing it.

    So now I have learned that there’s another remake coming out in June on Apple TV. Child rape and bullying for the 21st century.

    I know I’m giving off grandma vibes about You Kids Today, but every thirty years we have to put up with this? Really?

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  • A second chance at Choir! Choir! Choir!

    Remember the Choir! Choir! Choir concert I passed up in February because it was in a sketchy neighborhood? There’s another one December 17 in the entertainment distict in Chicago. Hotel right next door! Obama museum open! December in Chicago! Woo!

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  • The “end” of the underwear box saga …

    My room is small and is easily cluttered, so everything on the desk has to earn its place, and the underwear box had lost its novelty.

    I was tossing it in the trash when I saw this on the back.

    Underwear box has earned his keep and lives on another day.

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  • Weekly Paint Progress: 5/7/2026

    Well, the remaining errors stared me in the face and I realized I had to correct them. The bottom left and right of the lampshade have always been wrong and the size and slant of the glow on the wall was wrong.

    So this is the previous …

    This is the progress …

    And this is the goal.

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    It doesn’t look like I spent an hour on that wall glow. It looks just the same. And I tell myself that wall will dry darker. it So I am done, really.

    Pink Ball pitcher of peonies is next, or maybe the floating buffalo.

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  • I don’t know how to respond to that

    Things have been quiet here at the house. I think I said two sentences to Gary today, both regarding imminent house maintenance work.

    Neither sentence was hostile. This is what I call progress.

    A few weeks ago he complained about his health, and I knew:

    • If I was sympathetic he’d snap “Don’t condescend to me!”
    • If I wasn’t sympathetic then he’d say I was heartless.

    So I said, “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

    Met with “WHO SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO A SICK PERSON WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU,” plus accusations that I was being contolled by the counselor.

    Of course, time has passed and now it’s our go-to phrase.

    “Where did you put the scissors?”

    ”I don’t know how to respond to that.”

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