Tuesday, November 4, 2014

It's exactly the same, just different.

So.  Here it is.  A new blog.  Except not really.  All that's changed is the web address that gets you here (the old web address should still get you here, but feel free to update to the new one).  I needed a new name. I haven't been a Douglass for more than a year, and I didn't want that to be the website name any more.  I have decided to live in my summer cottage in Babylon full time.

I'm still working out a few of the kinks that come with migrating a blog.  Hopefully all the comments on old posts will be back soon, because really, the comments are my favorite part.  And my blog roll.  There's no simple way to migrate that.  It's going to require me manually adding them all. 

But otherwise, I think you'll find everything else is familiar.  Who knows, maybe I'll even start writing posts again.

In the meantime, here's a very brief update:

I have a real job.  I've been the "Executive Assistant" for a financial advisor for a year now, and I really like it.  Not finances--I don't like them, and I'm not good at them. I find the whole idea of investments and financial plans tedious.  But I'm good at the administrative stuff.  Keeping things organized, making sure rules are followed...that's right up my alley.  (Tangent: I refuse to ever use the phrase "in my wheelhouse," even though I actually know what it means and where it originated. "Right up my alley" is a much less douchey way of saying the same thing. If I ever hear you say something is in your wheelhouse, I will want to punch you in the taco.  I won't, because I don't think I could poop in a jail toilet, but I will want to.) (Yes. My biggest deterrent to committing a crime is the fear of public pooping.) 

My oldest has become a musclebound, giant man-child complete with facial hair and BO and I don't know what to do with that.  But along with the facial hair, BO, and several inches he has on me came a person who is fun to talk to and actually likes to be around me. 

We adopted a cat and it died 29 days later.  After swearing off new pets forever, we adopted another cat in July. So far he's not dead.

We've all (all eight of us) settled into our work-family balancing, splitting time between parents, six loaves of bread and five gallons of milk a week new lives.

And I feel like writing again, so hopefully you'll see me around here more. I've been holding in All The Opinions about All The Things for far too long. 

See you soon. 

Monday, April 21, 2014

"There are moments in every mans life, when he glimpses the eternal."

The rush of anger when I saw it surprised me.

It had been my favorite place.  The last time I was there was more than four years ago. I thought the memory of that night was long buried, but there it was. Sudden. Unexpected. Painful.

Sometimes it's one bite too much.  Sometimes it's something not chewed well enough.  Sometimes there's no reason at all. It just happens--the discomfort that inevitably becomes a re-visitation of everything I just ate. An unpleasant side effect of gastric bypass surgery.

It happened that night.  Soy glazed salmon.  Chinese broccoli.  Grilled bok choy with sesame oil. Then the uncomfortable foaming at the back of my throat, the pressure beneath my sternum. I left the table and went out to the car.  It seemed more discreet that way. I kept plastic bags in the seat pocket for just these occasions.

"Going there is kind of a waste of money," he said as we drove home.  "You threw up ten dollars worth of food."

Those words made me burn with a shame I can't quite explain. Yet another way I was a disappointment added to the growing pile. Another thing I enjoyed sullied by my inability to do it right.

We never went back there again.

Eventually we moved away.  I forgot about it, mostly.  I no longer thought of the words, but something inside always made me box up most of my restaurant dinners after that, even if I was still hungry.

Now, four years later, a picture.  It's right there as I scroll through my newsfeed.  The same restaurant, the same family--just a different face where mine had once been. And all the shame of that night came rushing back.  Shame and anger--anger I should have felt four years ago.

Cheeks flushed, I glance up from the screen with its picture of the memory with a new face in my spot.

She's looking at me from across the room, smiling.  Her brown eyes filled with so much love.  My anger dissipates as suddenly as it came.

I am no one's disappointment anymore.


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