Sort Of Like Taco Tuesday

And something in the air

I’ve been living my new life for about eight months now. I’ve been adjusting. I’ve been coping. I’ve been - gag - learning.

As early as September, I signed up for courses. After decades of 70+ hour weeks of fast-paced productivity and output, I paused to reconnect with what I wanted to do.

While I’d been ushered out of the life I’d been ushered into years before, I didn’t mind much of that being over; I was tired and ready for a change, and I’d intended to step away the following year anyway. But I missed the people and the community I’d helped build and been a part of for decades. I missed water cooler conversations, gossip I didn’t care about, and hearing about people’s babies, puppies, and terrible partners (truly, nobody cares about people’s wonderful partners).

I missed laughing about nothing much, and working with people toward a shared goal.

I also missed waking up each day knowing what I was supposed to do. Sure, manage other people’s lives, the needs, supplies, and upkeep of properties, tenants, relatives, and beagles. Manage my own life, such as it is. But that all seemed like maintenance bordering on drudgery, to be honest.

So I signed up for writing courses. There are many online, and the people in them are friendly.

The first ones I took were California-based and involved five or ten minutes of meditation before each writing session. This was obviously intolerable, but I soon learned that for the live classes, this allowed me time to mute my microphone, turn off my camera, and go make my tea.

For the pre-recorded courses, I found I could load the session on my phone, iPad, and computer and play several meditation sessions simultaneously while I made the tea. This Medifficiency™ saved much time and made me want to harm people less.

I was really getting somewhere on this “peaceful centering” shit.

Still, one can be at sea without being so… Pacific. I found writing courses with a more East Coast aesthetic. I practiced sentence structure, paragraph structure, editing tactics, and reading approaches. I attempted story arcs.

I was bad at all of it.

After months, I am still bad.

In late October, I started this Substack, and I promised myself I’d write a post a week because I’m a writer now.

I said, “I’m a writer now,” out loud, and looked around to see who was laughing at me. Luckily, there was nobody there, and the beagle was sleeping.

Bleak writer walk, April 1st, Wellfleet.

I listened as the phenomenal Allison K Williams talked about the trajectory from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence to unconscious competence.

I took my classes. 

I met some remarkable people, mostly women, all writing and all talented. All so polished and brave.

I’m new here, I remind myself. 

I used to be good at my job, and now I’m learning to be. Hoping to be.

I miss people, especially people who know me and get my humor. Who know about my hobby of buying domain names.

Snickerbitches.com: A future app that sends random, bitchy prompts to people at conferences that everyone else on the app can then weigh in on:

First row wearing blue totally has an Only Fans based on kittens and tequila.

Is this the same Powerpoint this speaker used in 1997?

100% seat 4, row 7 is sleeping with the keynote.

Homance.com: Because if there are Bromances, there should be Homances.

BringaBoomer.org: A charity service where socially lacking Gen X, Millennial, and Z can take a Boomer somewhere fun for dinner, to an event or exhibit, or even on a trip, show them how to use emojis and a password manager, and then the Boomer pays and writes it off.

I write my posts. Some people who read them like them, or comment on them, giving me gifts of encouragement, kindness, and feedback. It’s affirming to reach across the page and find the nod of agreement at life’s absurdities.

“My god,” I groaned to a new pal at a Zoom co-writing session before class one day, “I’m so happy when I get the Substack post out on Tuesday, but by Wednesday I’m starting to feel the creep of I have nothing left to write, ever, and then suddenly it’s Self-Loathing Sunday and whatever I was sort of working on I have to finish, but then I kind of like it, and then I schedule the post, and I’m happy. Then it starts all over again.”

“Welcome to being a writer, Marjie,” she laughed.

Well then. 

I told my classmates I wanted to get something published, an article or post somewhere, so I might feel more legitimate about all this. They kindly told me all sorts of places I could look for submission opportunities.

You mean I have to do that myself? Jesus…

But I looked. And while it turns out one has to have something written to submit it, after the initial panic I realized that’s not totally out of the question. I might be able to fake something and at least give it a try.

I won’t say it’s starting to feel like home, but maybe I’m getting the hang of this a little.

Yesterday I bought ConsciouslyIncompetent.com.

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Morning Teaistisms

I don’t want to upset anyone, but some people fill a teapot with water and then reboil it over and over again for subsequent cups of tea.

These are the same people who share lollipops and who “shotgun” tokes of weed.

Of the things that should not be reused, spit and oxygen are high on the list.

Tea and coffee both benefit from fresh, oxygen-rich water. The sad, dead drink that reboiled water produces when poured over leaves is to tea what CPR is to breathing: occasionally necessary, but never one’s first or best choice.

Furthermore, the People Who Spell Things With A U (you know, flavour, endeavour, whatevour) tend to think that all tea water needs to be poured at a rolling boil, but that’s not really the case. Black teas do like their water at a boil, but green and white teas like things a little calmer, thank you.

You don’t have to take my word for it. I found a good and proper tea site to back me up, and they have a video!

The brightness is in the bubbles. We all need a little fresh air to be at our best.

“If there is magic on this planet it is contained in water” ~ Loren Eiseley