Man, I have so much to catch up on that I don’t even know where to start. Seems like every time I pop on to read a little bit of your entries, there are 50+ entries to catch up on! I’m overwhelmed!
I also need to catch up in my own space. A LOT has happened, but when I sit down to type it out, I struggle to even get going!
Let’s see. I’ll just start and see where this goes:
Job Search: I’ve been talking with a LOT of companies. But these companies are not moving my soul. I’m concerned. I’ve talked and interviewed (video) with a company who I’ll just call The Squished Meat Company. They manufacture and sell pressed and processed meat to all the big fast food chains: Burger King, Arby’s, Taco Bell. I mean, how on earth would I get excited about a type of product that I’ve banned from my own life due to..oh, I don’t know…COLON CANCER?! I’ve talked and interviewed (phone) with a Chinese company that’s trying to sell itself as an American company simply by moving their offices from Shenzhen, China to [my city]. They want to “Americanize” their product/listings and they need a ton of work. I was asked to do a project. Started working on it, only to find out that the salary range for the position was about 50K less than my requirement. I’ve talked with a cosmetics company (now, this is pretty exciting), but they ended up hiring someone else. And most recently, I’ve been interviewing (again, video) with a company on the East Coast. This one is the most promising so far. It’s not 100% my cup of tea, the product is similar to outdoor tents and temporary structures, but I have all of the experience needed to do this job, and I’ve interviewed well with both the VP and a guy who would be my peer. The job is fully remote, so that would work out well (even though I enjoy going into the office), and I’m thinking that if it comes down to an offer, I’ll take it and keep my eyes and ears open. I’m pretty nervous about the thought of a recession/depression and I really want to have a secure job with benefits before the shit hits the fan. So I keep pressing on. There are distant possibilities with some other companies (working with a headhunter on a super sweet Sr. Design Director position at a very fast-growing furniture company!!), and a couple of other longshots. Just get pushing…just keep pushing!
The People in My Neighborhood: Well, I haven’t bumped into Chuckles since our last text series. He has completely left me alone, and I’m so glad. And yes, I guess it all was a small pile of nothing when all was said and done - I was totally honest with him about being uncomfortable. All good. Done. Now, as far as new people I’ve been seeing on my walks, remember the guy with the dirty kids? I’ve seen him once again since I saw him without his kids. I don’t get it, but I suppose it’s none of my business until it becomes my business. Ha! So I will give you one interesting update from my morning walks with Martini: on the 4th of July, I was walking Martini on the trail that’s connected to my park, and this guy came up behind us and we chatted for a moment and then he told me he needed to take off running and he said he’d catch me on the flip! Well, he came running back around to where I was with the dog about 15 minutes later and did a little walk and talk with me for a good 15 minutes. Turns out, he lives in my building and has been there ever since his divorce two years ago. Moved here from NYC and loves it here. Has some family (grown kids) fairly close. We’ve walked together one morning since then and had more good chats. At one point, we took a little break to sit in the shade at this little picnic patio in the park and he picked up Martini like a baby and cuddled her in such a way that it almost gave me the warm squishies. You know? When you see someone handle something with such tender loving care? I almost got the feels….like wondering if he’d be that tender in bed? I had to shake that off really quickly - hahah! I wonder if he knew he was putting a spell on me? I think I was blushing! Anyway, we exchanged numbers and he told me he was going to be traveling over the next couple of weeks. He got a little excessive with the texting (I’m just not used to a guy texting a lot), so I think he got the message to tap the brakes a bit on that and he just got back into town last night. It was a shame because he missed the most recent concert in the park. My friend Jackie came over and we split a bottle of bubbly and danced a bit and the whole time, neighbor dude was texting his location (connecting flights, etc.). He texted that he’d just landed when the band called it a night! I’d like to go on a date with this guy to see if it might be something, but I’m also kind of meh. I guess time will tell - but I’m reaaaaal curious about his potential magic touch!
Take Me Out to the Ballgame: Last year, when I was going through cancer treatment and not feeling the best, my dad told me that he wanted to go to a baseball game with me sometime. At the time, my office was within walking distance to the brand new high-tech baseball stadium just being completed and he thought that it would be an amazing experience to go - especially since things were finally starting to ease up with the covid restrictions. Well, time got away and we never did go to the game last year, but he never forgot about the promise I’d made to take him. So this year, dad reminded me that he really wanted to go to a game, and I said YES! Perfect. I’ll go on the hunt for some tickets! We picked out a date (we wanted to watch our team play the Twins because my dad used to take my brother and me to Twins games when we were little), and I started searching for decent tickets. Turns out, it was going to be quite expensive if we wanted to have good seats and all that. So I started thinking about who I knew who might have some connections, and I remembered that the Rodeo Clown (remember him? Maybe?) is a HUGE baseball fan! So I sent him a text to see if he could give me some advice on tix, and do you know what he did??? He GAVE me his season tickets for that game. INSISTED on gifting them to me. Not only were they VIP seats, but we got VIP parking, went in through a VIP special secret entrance, got into the VIP club before the game which had an all-you-can-eat and drink restaurant and VIP service for anything we wanted while we sat in our seats! HOLY COW it was a dream come true!! Not only that, the game was AMAZING! Home runs galore and WE WON!! And we got a bobble head of one of the players! I am so grateful to the Rodeo Clown for this because there’s no way my dad could have made it without all of that VIP stuff. He has gotten so frail and is turning into what I remember my old grandpa to be like…he’s slow and fragile. As we were leaving, he misstepped on the escalator and almost fell backwards! Thank GOD the people behind him kind of pushed him forward and he got his balance. Ughhh! That could have been disastrous! But it was a very, very special moment just father and daughter and I know he enjoyed the heck out of it and I probably enjoyed it even more than he did.
Fuck Cancer Follow-Ups:Ugh, I’m tired of writing, so I’m going to make this part short. I had my three month check up and the bottom line is, everything seems to be ok right now. I was worried about my tumor markers, but those look stable and there are some things that are still kind of out of whack with my blood levels, but nothing that shouldn’t keep improving by continuing to lead a healthy lifestyle. I have scheduled my next chest/abdomen/pelvis scan for October and will be getting my brain scan for the aneurysm in the next few weeks (that one is hard to schedule for some reason), and I continue to keep on keeping on. It’s just that I get so PTSD-y when I go to the cancer center. I know that this is normal, but I just seem to get emotional when I go to that building. It’s wild. I get nauseous and my blood pressure goes way up (I had been to my primary care physician’s office earlier in the morning where my BP was perfect and then I went to Oncology where they checked my BP again, less than two hours later and it had skyrocketed while sitting in the waiting room!). Anyway. This is how it’s going to be until I get to that 5-year mark. And it’s fine. I recognize it for what it is. And as long as I can make it to that 5-year mark and my cancer doesn’t come back, I’m fine with stressing out every three months. I just let it wash over me and then the appointment is over, and then I treat myself with a delicious, gigantic breakfast! And I even took myself to the movies again (this time I saw the Elvis movie, which left me feeling kind of weird…I don’t know if it was because I was already feeling kind of funky or what?). It’s a nice escape.
Alex vs. Lexi: So, the last story I’m going to try to get out quickly is not really my story to tell, but it’s kind of heartbreaking and a little bit surprising to me. I don’t know if I’m going to tell it correctly, because again, it’s not my story, but it is one that I imagine is happening in a lot more households with kids who are pre-teen and teenagers. Seems Best Bud’s nephew is struggling with his gender identification and some other things that include an eating disorder and likely Asperger’s syndrome. The thing is, it seems like it’s become trendy to throw every issue a child may have into a struggle with their sexuality or gender - when that might not even be the actual underlying issue. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a teenager in this day and age. I do remember that when I was a teenager, EVERYTHING was confusing, but there was not much confusion about the sexuality spectrum because it seemed like there were only a few choices a kid could be, right? I could be straight or gay. On the body image spectrum, I could be anorexic or I could be overweight. And there was not much other information floating around, you know? At least in my own immature eyes back then. But nowadays, it seems like there are a million “issues” that a kid can sort of be labeled with, and there is a lot of “support” that a kid can find via social media and other outlets that we never really had as kids. So the bottom line is, Alex, Best Bud’s nephew, wants to be Lexi. And his/her mom and dad (Best Bud’s bro and SIL) are having a FIT about it because they think that Alex is being somewhat bullied into thinking that he wants to be a she. And he’s being given a lot of “support” from his peer group that seems to push him/her even further into a gender-bending situation, such as, gifts of lipstick and nail polish, etc. And the poor kid just keeps going further and further into his shell because he is essentially being overstimulated by so much pressure. My heart broke to hear the story from Best Bud’s angle, because she’s now involved in the whole thing since her own son introduced her nephew to this peer group (long story, but BB’s bro and SIL moved to this area from Dubai, where all of Alex’s friends were and he didn’t have his own friends so he latched on to BB’s son’s friend group). ANYWAY. What am I trying to say? I guess all I’m trying to say is that I can’t imagine being a teenager in this day and age. Ugh.
OK. My head is spinning. Some of that has to do with still feeling some after-effects of vertigo from a couple weeks ago. It kinda came back a little today. And I’m also tired. I don’t know if any of that stuff I wrote above makes any sense, but these are the things rattling around in my head lately.
Have a lovely Friday night and enjoy your weekend, my loves!
xo,
GS
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