It’s summertime so I’ll probably wear my Converse to go see OAR. In the winter I wear Doc’s everywhere except to work, (sometimes I wear them there too) and this got me thinking. I mean I know I am perpetually stuck in the ’90’s everything about me screams that. Everyone who knows me knows about my love for grunge music and My So-Called Life. Yup, I loved me some Jordan Catalano and some Buffalo Tom music.

I play “Late at Night” in the shower sometimes, and wear way too much flannel, I might have a flannel shirt on right now at 5 am as I type. I told you it’s bad.

But, really here is my question, am I too old for Converse and Doc Martens? I don’t feel too old, I’ve always worn them. Well, not when I was married to my ex-husband because he was a douche but before and after yes.

Is age just a number or are we dead after forty and should act accordingly? The thing is I feel comfortable in my old standbys, they’re comfortable and familiar and in the end, I still want to be a little Emo wherever I go. It’s who I am after all, and today I love who I have become and if I have a few wrinkles and grey hair so be it.

I’m wearing the converse to my grave people, I think I want to be buried in them too!

Thursday can’t come soon enough, I mean I cannot wait!!. I’m going on see OAR again. Happy Birthday to me!!

This is my all time favorite band. I would quit my job and follow them like the Grateful Dead if I could. I wouldn’t even think twice about it.

This is how much I love them and I have loved them for what seems like forever now. I still remember the first time I heard their unique sound and not just because I got insulted that day.

Way back in 2003 or 2004 I was in Best Buy to get a GPS for my new job as a public health nurse and I heard this band on the stereo system in the store. I just had to know who they were!

They had a unique reggae/ rock sound that intrigued me from the jump. That is my genre of choice usually. There’s just something so relaxing about reggae. I love Sublime also and Badfish, but OAR just hits me in a different way.

Anyway, with great joy, I found someone who worked there in hopes of finding out who this band was.

“Who is this band playing?” I asked with glee.

The teenager behind the counter was like “Oh, you like that? It’s OAR ma’am.”

Wait a minute! Ma’am? Ma’am? What?

This happened to me at TicketMaster once too trying to get Pearl Jam tickets. I was only 29, why was the snotty kid asking me if I knew who Pearl Jam was? OF COURSE, I knew who they were. Wasn’t I trying to get tickets to see them? Come on kid work with me here.

Anyway, I digress. This happened a few years after OAR at Best Buy but still…

Now I was no teenager, but I did have to use face cream at that stage in my life and I guess it showed?

I swallowed a sarcastic remark and moved on. I needed this music in my life.

Once listened to more I didn’t care. She pointed me to the rack of CDs and I then began my sixteen-year love affair with OAR.

I see them every year and only missed once when I had to study for a nursing exam.

This Thursday I am going with my daughter, not the YouTube daughter, my other one. She is my concert buddy and has been since she was a little kid. I have a few friends that I call concert friends, people I see at the concerts. But only at the concerts, you know. But she is by far my first choice to be with, always.

Every year for my birthday she takes me to see OAR. One year we switched it up and went to see Metallica on Mother’s day. This is a child after my own heart.

I have two daughters that I dragged to concerts all their lives but only one chooses to go with me now. That’s fine. My other girl and I do things together too that don’t include getting smashed in a mosh pit or going deaf from loud music, maybe she’s the smart one, I dont know.

My husband isn’t too much into it either, he likes live music but only a certain kind. Truth be told I broke up with him in high school and one of the reasons was that we could never agree on music back then and it seemed so important at the time.

Now that we are older and wiser, and I have taken him to OAR and Badfish and some others but he is not a huge fan. That’s ok, there’s much more to our relationship now.

Actually, he and I only agree on a certain genre of music (punk rock) and usually, he listens to *OMG* country music.

I listen to everything but.

This Thursday is going to rock. We have pit seats and I am so excited!!

It’s Monday and already the week is going to drag but also it’s a short week for me and at the end is OAR. Come on Thursday get here soon!!

Today there is some kind of glitch that is pissing everyone in my house off. Even as I type this my words are not flowing onto the page the way they usually do. It’s like my computer has slowed down to a snail’s pace. There are many unhappy campers in my house today including me.

I’m typing at my usual speed but the letters are taking forever to appear, not good. I’m already minutes ahead in my brain, this will drive me nuts. I want to see the words as soon as I type them, is that too much to ask?

My youngest has a YouTube channel and to be honest I’m not really all that sure of how it all works. She does makeup tutorials and has quite a good following, I am so proud of her! So, apparently, it’s important to upload on time and today it wasn’t happening. There’s a weird kind of dynamic going on today, my google home couldn’t find my favorite OAR song and my air conditioner (brand new last year) is acting up.

For me, it’s just another day in the life. We really need the air conditioner to be working though, I might melt you know. I’m not usually cranky, but I could be if I get too warm, it’s a possibility.

Meanwhile, my husband was taking way too long in the garage, and I was sweltering as I wrote, despite Google’s poor cooperation.

Finally, I said fuck it and went to Wawa for some Diet Iced Tea, it’s bomb. This made me wonder what we, as a society would do if our creature comforts suddenly vanished. No more air conditioning, no Wifi, no Wawa Iced Tea?

We are all so used to having exactly what we want when we want it that our world turns upside down if anything even minute goes wrong. None of us would make it through the apocalypse, not a one.

Once we all said I want my MTV and now it’s I want my Netflix.

There’s just so much that we are used to having, I mean I need my ibuprofen, my Keurig coffee, and my computer. I also can’t see without my contact lenses, so I’m beat when it all goes down.

Back to the YouTube thing though, it’s so easy to become dependent on all of these things without really thinking about it. Even our cars don’t run the same as they used to, that’s all computerized too, when we buy gas it’s all by a computer as well.

So what if, right? Sounds like a good dystopian novel doesn’t it? Yup I agree, I think I’ll write one. The downfall of man brought on by a YouTube glitch, film at eleven.

Why do you notify me of the same damn thing fifty million times a day? I used to say this until Facebook stopped updating and made my fucking year. I turned off all notifications long ago, but it shows up when you log in and then you have to clear each one and it’s so damn tedious. Now it just doesn’t update, hurray!!!

It’s just that I don’t want to be notified of every little thing, it gives me anxiety.

Also, I don’t care. Not even a little bit. I don’t care about your kid’s soccer game, your dinner, or your life, not unless you are one of ma peeps, sad but true. I have my own life to live, and my tribe that I am close to, who I care about immensely. But everyone else is just chatter, as it should be. There’s no reason to be so available, all the time, for everybody and it wasn’t always this way. You see, I come from the time before, * audible gasp* cell phones.

It’s true.

Listen, I’m as hip as the next over forty woman, don’t you worry. But I remember what it was like to go out and not have something attached to your hand 24/7. I know what it was like to be unreachable and I took it for granted. My mother could never stalk me to the Pt. Pleasant Inlet with an App, hell, we didn’t even know what an App was!

I wasn’t all up in my friends bizznizz all day long, and there was no political divide, no pictures of everyone’s Starbucks order. Actually, there was no Starbucks. Imagine a world without Starbucks latte and free Wifi. It used to exist and I remember it.

Now, don’t misunderstand, I have spent more than my share of time hiding in the bathroom at work updating my status and reading fanfiction, I sure have. But when my updates stopped, my anxiety stopped, mostly.

I stopped sharing my shit constantly, I got a life.

Do they still call them avi’s, I have no clue? I am so far out of the loop now it’s ridiculous.

Anyway, it’s called Christina’s World, by Andrew Wyeth, my avi, the painting and it’s one of my favorites. I am also a fan of anything by Van Gough and Kandinsky and love Alone Together by Maria Kreyn, look it up, it is fabulous. I have no clue where my love of art came from, my mother certainly never took me to a museum. That would have interfered with her drinking, yes I am fucking salty about it.

Don’t have kids if you aren’t going to be 100% there for them, just don’t! It isn’t difficult to understand, some people should never be parents but if you do have kids, be with them; take them to a museum, or a concert, or the beach and really connect with them, make them feel wanted. If you can’t or don’t want to put another person before yourself for the rest of your life, do not have kids.

That’s fine too, don’t have kids if you don’t want to, it’s a hard job and not everyone is cut out for it. You don’t have to do it and if you don’t want to then you shouldn’t.

Know that you can do free things with them, they don’t care, they just want you to be there! And remember they are watching you, they will do what you do, you better believe it!

Whatever you do, let it be what you want, I mean want with all your heart.

Whew, this started out as me talking about my favorite paintings and got real dark, real fast. Sorry about it. I broke that cycle, I dont drink and do drugs anymore (my kids never saw me high, only sober and clean).

From the jump, I took my kids to museums, concerts, beaches and continue to enjoy them as the wonderful human beings that they are. My mother doesn’t like me, it’s fine; she told me, and she told others, my answer is, I didn’t ask to be born, and I am over it.

My avi is Christina’s World and this is mine, my world. Welcome to the crazy.

I totally love social media, I’m not kidding. I have made some great friends on FB, Twitter and Instagram and feel so blessed to know these people from all around the world, that’s the good part about it. That’s the part I have gratitude for. SM makes a lot of things possible that weren’t possible just a few years ago however, too much of a good thing. You know what I mean? We have access to stream anything we want into our mind through our eyes and through our ears, but some of that content is not always what’s best for us. I decided to finally stick to my vow of spending no more than an hour on SM a day.

My phone offers a digital well being setting and I am going to really use it this time. I have set it before and then deleted the timers as I drink too much coffee and scroll, scroll, scroll, until my eyes are crossed and twitching. As we all know, scrolling right now can be triggering, depending how you are feeling that particular day.

So now it’s more water, moving around, eating better and listening to more music. I cried all the way home from work last night for no reason. I had a good day, it was long but good, I love my job and I was going home to my family who I love very much, but I could not shake this sadness. Now granted, we are all recovering from this traumatic year that was 2020, but I had been handling it ok despite getting Covid in November and not really feeling my best ever since. Last night I just lost it.

I listen to true crime podcasts, for many reasons, one of them being my uncle was missing for six months and then his body was found in a swamp in Florida. It just have been fascinated by crimes all of my life, it was books I devoured before this digital age so when podcasts came out I was like a kid in a candy store. But last night, I was so sad driving home to my husband and kids, for no reason.

Now, as a nurse in the middle of a pandemic I’ll admit that this year has been a challenge, but I have always been able to make the best of any situation I found myself in. That’s not what this was about, nor was it about politics or money or my mother or any of the other things that grind my gears on the regular. This was from someplace much darker and I could not figure it out.

It occurred to me that I spend every day with earbuds in streaming murder and mayhem into my brain as a rule to get through the day. It was no wonder I was rattled beyond belief at nine pm in the snow driving home. Today I decided to take a week off from podcasts and to listen to music instead; we’ll see how that goes. I also vow to drink more water and be better to myself. I need to move, and watch what I put into my body and mind, this was a rude awakening.

It’s not too late to resolve to be better to me, my Instagram is going to be filled with Norman Reedus and cats, my body full of vegetables and fruit and my mind full of 90’s alternative rock that will bring me back to a place where there is no pandemic and no sorrow.

Wish me luck.

Listen, you do you ok but I just find Twitter annoying as hell. If it isn’t our problematic president, don’t get me started; its the hoards of sad, sad, people trying to make others sad with them. I admit that I started a Twitter to follow (read stalk) one celebrity, but not in the creepy Annie Wilks way, more of I love you from afar, but would run and hide if I saw you on the street way, there’s a difference. But yes, that was what brought me to Twitter, lol I freely admit that.

I mean he’s HOT, and I have been in love with him since forever, I mean for-ev-er, way before he was famous, and this was my main objective. Social Media can make me feel special just because he might like a Tweet of mine, notice little ole me, a girl can dream, can’t she? I once breathed the same air as him at Walker Stalker, gasp, a fan girl’s dream right? Oh to be in the same room with the man of your dreams? I was one happy fangirl that day, for sure; thirty feet away from all that oozing hotness was just fine with me. I mean really, what would I say to him anyway? I stare at pictures of you way too often? I write dirty fanfiction stories about characters you play in movies and on TV? I hear you smell really good? (Yes, I bought the Keihl’s musk, so I could imagine how he smells. Don’t judge me). That’s not creepy at all, right, RIGHT? Ok, I just outed myself on many levels, but really it’s all there in my feed for everyone’s eyes.

Yay Twitter.

What I do all day, who I worship, whose ass I like, it’s all there for the world to see and I can be as anonymous as I want to be. Twitter was a gold mine, a place to interact with that hot actor and others who felt the same about him. What could be bad? It was heaven on earth I tell you! I signed up for this, gave it all away willingly!

It was all good for a while, really good despite all the fuck boys and dick pics. But now I feel like shouting out into the void has become too commonplace, and these people think they can say anything they want to without repercussions. Last night, while laying in bed with my GH (gorgeous husband) I found myself enraged and aggravated over nothing!

I should have been talking to my daughter who came to tell me about her day or later fucking my husband, but noooooo. I was on Twitter getting mad about Trump, judging peoples selfies, and liking and retweeting bullshit for the masses. I woke up in a bad mood the next morning, way too early I might add and reached for my phone right away…why?

Because I am an addict, plain and simple and this is just another addiction. Tonight the phone goes off at nine pm, come hell or high water and I will not look at it like a psycho when I wake up in the middle of the night. I won’t, I swear to God I won’t! I will be engaged in conversation with my loved ones, I will be present in the moment and I will fuck my husband; it is Saturday night after all.

The best of intentions right? Wish me luck!

By some stroke of cosmic horrifying luck, Twitter is the only App that updates on the reg for me. Go figure right? My cell provider sucks but hey it’s cheap and I am all about the cheap right now. All about it. Who needs Tumblr anyway? I will rant about why I need to be so cheap in another post, suffice to say, my country is going down the tubes at the hand of a dictator, who is, guess what? On Twitter.

I have three Twitter acounts and almost 2500 followers between the three. I do a podcast with my friend about being thirsty for said above celebrity, plus one more hot dude( I’m old, not dead people), and run a Facebook group for writers, yet I do not want this world I created. It’s way too much and there isn’t enough time in the day for all of it.

Today I vow to turn it off, if not for good at least a few hours, it wont be easy but I am determined. I even verbalized it to GH so it’s on now. Goodbye cruel Twitter world, don’t miss me too much and stop trying to slide into my DM’s, unless you’re Norman Reedus.

I was born caught between two worlds as most Gen X people might say. A child of baby boomers and the “me” generation, when music was free flowing, gas cost 25 cents a gallon and Donald Trump was not a thing. There was no internet and my brother and I left on our bikes every weekend and summer morning, never to be seen again until night time. Life was different, not better, just different.

As a girl who hung out with the boys, other girls looked at me funny, said things, and they wonder now why I won’t be friends on facebook and go to their silly reunions.  I have no desire to return to those times, they are ingrained in my mind forever.

I grew up in a one salary house, a two story house, with a pool, two cars and a mother with an extreme shopping habit. All was well though, there was always money for wine and cigarettes.

I spent summer days at the beach against my will and as many will say, sometimes I wish to be so carefree again. My feet barely get to touch that beloved sand now, maybe once a season. It’s sad. I need to make more time for that but how?

That is the question I have been asking myself since age 15. How? How do I do all of these things that my mother and other women of her generation never had to do?

People like me, girls like me grew up confused about what they were supposed to be. Do I follow along in this pattern, and what do I tell my own children? Do I get married, do I have a career, can I have both, must I?

The answer was always yes you must. You are not free, you never were.

Today we work ourselves into a grave trying to give our children a roof over their head, something went wrong along the way. Today an illness will take everything you have and people choose to die instead of gettin expensive treatments and medical care.

I was born in the middle of the century and forever fell stuck between what was and what is. The child of baby boomers and the me generation. If it was about them, then it was never about me, was it. When I did have children of my own I realized, it still wasn’t about me and it never would be, and that’s the way it is supposed to be.

Now it was about them, it was never going to be about me. But going back before they came, because that’s the real story here. When for a short time it was about me and what a disaster it became.

But there is always music, and there always will be. There will always be Lisbeth Salander and Harley Quinn to look up to. There are always reasons. We just need to find the right ones; a skill it took longer for me to learn than others.

Reasons are what keep us going, it’s what feeds our souls, and we all have reasons, even if we don’t know what they are.

I have always loved rock music and I may have been born with earphones in my ears, I will certainly die with them in. Bury me with Aerosmith and Sublime playing please and any other rock and roll you can think of.

The Smiths and The Killers are always good too, when I’m in those moods. Death won’t come, no matter how much I thought I wanted it once and I have planned my funeral. But that won’t be for a while I suspect. There aint no rest for the wicked they say, and that’s true enough.

My parents casual drug use fed what would become my addiction. It wasn’t normal to roll joints at the dining room table or to be so drunk you tell your child it would have been better if she wasn’t born.

But that was normal for me and my escape before the pills was music. The lyrics floating through my brain all of the time, ‘My heart is broke but I have some glue’. ‘When your life is oh so dreary, dream’. I can still hear them now.

My love for grunge music and Doc Marten’s remains with me still and nothing can make me smile more than these two things. Except the laughter of my two daughters. But, I have fear for them, when they go out into this world that I barely survived.

When I look back on my experiences, I am lucky to be here still.

That was my fault though and I have to own that. But they are so innocent where I never was. I am guilty of seeking out an escape when music didn’t feed my empty soul anymore. I had my first drink at thirteen and was smoking pot by fifteen. When I was sixteen it was suggested by friends that I should slow down and some of them were quitting altogether.

I wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be ready for a long time.

I decided to try Heroin because why not? I had tried crank already, which is what they call meth now and didn’t like that. It gave me anxiety and I didn’t want to feel anything, I was anxious enough. No I didn’t want to feel at all, and heroin was the ticket. I did it once and knew I could never do it again, it felt too good.

For a brief time, I wasn’t me, I wasn’t anything and I wanted more. But I was smart enough to know I could never have more. I never did it again; it was the first drug I really feared.

Michael, my best using friend was quitting and I was stepping it up a notch by deciding to just try everything. He got clean and stayed clean for a long time.

Not me though, I was different you see, and it was normal to be wasted every day. Normal at my house anyway, and later I saw it.

They will copy what I do, they are always watching, like I was. There is something called free will and that is a big part of it, it was ultimately my choice and that is what I am guilty of. Free will run rampant and no one to police my actions.

Someone needs to police a child, and sometimes it is the child in you that will keep you clean to be the mother you never had.

So I haven’t been on here forever. And tbh forgot my password and had to make a whole new account. But I’m back now, I’ll move all my useless rambling over asap. Welcome to the crazy.