Caterwauling

Make it convenient to do the right thing.

This was the e-letter message from one of my favorite writers today. He never seems to post those articles online, so no link love. But much, much love.

His building makes recycling hard (so does mine). Finding a place to have a cigarette makes smoking a pain in the ass. Not signing up for a class at the gym makes it easier to stay in bed, but now you have to explain your absence to others if they don’t see you. Might as well go to the gym.

I got to thinking about regulation, since Cheeto Benito is so hellbent on it. He’s already got the House rolling back regs that keep our drinking water and our air clean. (Shit. For. Brains.) President Bannon finally admitted that he picked Cabinet members who hate their industries so they can destroy them from within. And the Enabler in Chief is going along with it.

(Politics will kill me, I tell you.)

In any event, regulations make it easier to do the right thing. Or at least illegal to do the wrong thing. In the purest sense, of course, and I’m not here to argue against the regs that I think are stupid. (And there are many.)

I got to thinking about my lack of wanting to write. Well, it’s not necessarily that I don’t want to. I just have an array of not- to half-working computers all around me. And finally breaking down and buying a new computer last weekend was like hearing the angels sing.

I’ve left this laptop in its cute hot-pink bag for the past week. And the whole idea of buying the damn thing was to make it easier to get to my music and my bookmarked sites and, gee, the thousands of pages of typed-out notes for the stories in my head.

I almost wonder too, if I should go back to Weight Watchers. I did so well when I went to meetings. This whole tracking food online and then hitting the lentil chips after I put the phone away is killing my scale game. But when I have to face the judgy eyes of a leader who’s been skinny for the last 50 years, well. Makes me want to put the Big Gulp down, Tubby.

I also don’t say things out loud, so as not to commit to them. There’s not a public speaking opportunity that I don’t dodge. Heck, I can’t even commit to lunch just in case I want to worm out of it. (And trust me, I will always want to worm out of it. Generally leaving my schedule open means peace of mind and harmony at home.)

I want to commit to making it easier to do the right thing, or at least harder to do the wrong thing. Am hoping Lent can provide that opportunity.

My plan was to swear off the lentil chips. But mom said i am pretty angry when I am not crunching on things. And I gave up the chips the past week and she’s right. What else will curb the rage? (I’ve been trying sugar. Because we always have it in the house and I can usually resist it IF I have things to crunch on. Not so much now. Bad Goddess.)

My next plan is to quit going over my daily/weekly points allotment. Not giving up meat or sugar or booze or, God forbid, lentil chips. And that means stuffing my face with King Cake on Tuesday, yes. But that’s so I don’t have the temptation to snarf in the leftovers Wednesday.

If i can stay in my daily points again, I can do anything. Truly. And I hope someone, anyone can help encourage me and not either try to excuse it or just shame me in their own special ways.

Interesting study out that you’re a completely different person at 77 than you were at 14.

I like to think I’ve gotten more goddess-like over the years. But I’d also like to think I was just as kind and as thoughtful and thinking as I was then, too.

Yet when a good friend from back then said to me around the primaries that he assumed I was voting for Bernie, I was rattled. Like, um, not into socialism.

Granted it would be better than this communo-fascism shit we have now. Citizens getting stopped at airports and other random checkpoints to make sure they aren’t illegal or intersex? Christ.

In any event, I saw “Year by the Sea” yesterday and was so moved that the heroine had so much spunk. She was mom’s age and left her husband and moved to Cape Cod, where she had to go by rowboat to her apartment without running water.

At the point I had to walk through mud to get to the rowboat, I would have been out of there. Or maybe when there was no water or coffee waiting for me when I finally turned the breakers on in the dead of night.

But I bet my 18-year-old self, who lived in the haunted hotel … or maybe the 20-year-old girl who lived in the attic with the gargoyles and the entire homeless drag-queen population of Pittsburgh sleeping on the floor while she worked her three jobs … would have made an adventure of it.

I mean, I’d still take in a band of refugees over a single Trump voter any day. The latter would require heavy vetting if I were that into risk. Which, I’m not.

I feel like I try to get back to the girl who once was. Hard to do when you spend more than a paycheck on rent and somehow have to keep duct-taping your car together to make it go. I thought THOSE kinds of adventures would have ended in my 20s.

In muy seven-ish years by the sea, not much has changed. Same job title, same cat, same mom, same weight and same low-grade anxiety about everything. But a whole lot of peaks and valleys that keep drawing me back to the current mean.

As long as the heart keeps on ticking after it takes a beating, I suppose, all is well. And maybe the changes are there but I don’t see them.

I’d like to think I’m the “other” Joan in the film. Dancing on the beach and helping everyone else along their journeys. Colorful and wild and wise. Of course, she got a book deal. I’d like that for me too.

There’s a line in the movie (and there were many good ones) that says “I’m beginning to like the person I could be.” That didn’t make me cry as much as “True heroines write their own endings,” but I’ll take inspiration wherever I can get it. Seeing as though I don’t get it from everywhere like I used to.

One more line I need to remember was that things start to happen as soon as you start seeking. At this point I’m in search of some turkey sausage because the cat got me up too early and I’m hungry.

Otherwise I’m usually seeking a way out. Maybe I need to seek a way in to something that my 77-year-old self will thank me for. I just wish I knew where to look …