Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Putting the TMI in absentminded

Month: May 2026

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 5/21/2026

    Previous floating buffalo: This is the progress: He was originally: .

  • Once in a lifetime work ensemble

    It was 65 degrees outside today, which means it was 55 degrees inside of the TeddyJ building. Cold. It was also a week before Memorial Day and white pants one size smaller just came in the mail. Hot. So for the only time ever in history I was the first person to pair a heavy…

  • ER adventure

    Gary woke me up at midnight last night and insisted I get out of bed and sit down in the chair because he had concerning health news. “I have pulmonary edema.” he intoned. [SPOILER. It was not. (SPIwn for short.)] He clarified that he just lay down for bed and water gushed out of his…

  • Gary is pithy and wise

    When I have blind spots, Gary’s take always surprises me. Like he said, “Ellen, sometimes bad people lie to make themselves look good. And sometimes good people lie to make themselves look better. And those aren’t the same thing.” I mean right there, that bought him another six months of marriage.

  • TWIL: Women are exhausting but wonderful

    For a variety of reasons I have met more women this month than any other month of my life. I mean hundreds of women. And somehow they’re all like me. It is also exhausting. I felt like I was in a hall of mirrors with infinite copies of my flattering, over-sharing self stretching into the…

  • Bad day at the doctor

    So I went to the neurologist’s office to work out exactly why I seem to be spinning up these false memories. I saw the physician’s assistant, who said one concerning thing. At one point well into it he said, “But you’re smiling and happy. You don’t look like you’re depressed.” My response, when I collected…

  • 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”…

  • Weekly Paint Progress: 5/14/2026

    Behold ye the floating buffalo! He was originally: 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.

  • 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…

  • 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…