where ya at

What to write about today?
I sit here post-yoga feeling mellow, reflecting on the week.
The weather has been cloudy and cool for a few days, for which I'm so grateful.
I was able to do some volunteer work this week. It was, as always, both rewarding and frustrating: listening to the graduates' speeches vs hearing that one recent graduate spent the last 3 weeks in jail.
Meeting with my shrink this week was contentious but not as demoralizing as last week.
The more I learn about misophonia the more I'm convinced it's neurological, not audiological, and that all of the known treatments are merely band-aids. Temporary and incomplete. I'm not hopeless but it's frustrating.
Summer is nearly here and already there's so much to anticipate: road trips with my niece, a family reunion, shows and performances and movies and events.
With that, it's time to write.

Yass Queen

This today, because I heart Freddy Mercury so.
Watching a video from 1977--what a raw, unvarnished and sexy relic.

This week in music: arena, festival, community ballet

 This week captured the joy of performance in Seattle for me. Wednesday was Beyonce at the CLink, which as it turns out is a terrific venue for a big arena show. It was a cool misty evening. The set, with its enormous rectangular box-slash-video screen, alternately showed Bey, dancers, videos, and once, went various shades of purple in homage to Prince, while "Purple Rain" boomed. The Queen B herself didn't engage too much with the crowd (as opposed to Lady Gaga, who usually talks about the West Coast, brings people onstage, gives motivational talks) but it was a powerful performance. And, from what I know, an all-female band. CityArts captured it perfectly: Beyonce is Real. Wow. Friday was the Fisherman's Village Music Festival in Everett with some friends. Venues are spread around the downtown area and include a dive bar and a vintage theatre (awkward seat-wise until you realize you can just go stand down front). Standouts were Grace Love and her band, The True Loves, and a slightly underwhelming, now-three-person band, Tango Alpha Tango. Later on, in the alleyway behind the Everett Theatre, we ran into Ms. Love herself as well of 2/3 of TAT, decompressing and having a smoke.

And, Saturday was my niece's spring ballet. She was onstage for at least a half-dozen numbers during the early show, and when I left, was heading back for performance #2.
Me, after a week of long days and late nights, I'm taking it easy. Woke up late, now enjoying some coffee, a run around the neighborhood, and  writing.

verruckt verka

New (to me) music: Verka Serduchka. Enjoi.

when people show you who they are believe them

When people show you who they are, believe them.
--Attributed to Maya Angelou
I like this quotation, and it frightens me.
*
A friend with a patchy dating history used to tell me about how she could see the red flags with guys, and she knew she was ignoring the red flags and she continued on with assholes and idiots anyway. We see, and yet we don't. I see, and yet I do nothing.
*
I felt some hurt this past week and I think this is the only place I can dig into it. Mother's Day was a tough one for me. Everywhere you look, there are people with bouquets, moms and daughters, social media, stores, everything, hyping Mother's Day. So I laid low and made plans to see one of the few people who really gets it. We agreed on a time. I took a shower and made a cake. And waited. Texts came in about an hour before meet up time--running late, no don't come meet us, just wait. And then--cancellation. The person was tired. They needed to get some rest. Get some rest, I messaged. I felt sad, but I got it. It had been a tough day.
And the next day I saw on fb that the person had not gotten rest, instead they went to a birthday party.
So what to do with this? A tough day was made tougher with a lie. I would have liked to have felt important. Or at least, respected enough for the truth. This is not a conversation I feel like I can have with the person, tbh. What can I do? I can feel the hurt, remember how utterly alone and miniscule I felt. I can put up a wall with this person. I can not let them hurt me like that again.
*
On a happier note, I was fortunate to see so many good friends this week, to take my favorite thirteen-year-old to coffee and ballet, to have canal-side drinks and catch up time with a pal after work one day, to laugh my way through trivia with old friends--Pops and Phatty and Jojo and Bubbles and my fellow Gin Blossom--then on Thursday, drinks and pizza in south Seattle with a glam couple.
*
So for today, all I can do is do me. I can seek to understand the complications of love and family and pain through my writing.
Straw into gold.
*
Today's jam:

shranque the shrinque

So my CEO shrink became ill during our session this week. She was getting over bronchitis, she told me. First, a break for water, then for an inhaler, but neither seemed to help. She sat down, appearing to listen to me but she was also staring intently at my knees with watery eyes, so I gently suggested that we stop for the day.
She demurred. I'm fine.
You always say, accept the things you can't control, I said.
She laughed, and made a face. And we called it a day.
*
The thing is, I could have used someone to listen to me this week. It's Mother's Day tomorrow, and I miss my mom so much. Even 12 years later! She was a vibrant, vivacious soul and is terribly missed. This is a weekend to remember, to stay off social media, to avoid stores and restaurants and events.
To hide. To create.
*
Working on tattoo ideas. This one below is a contender. Like so much in life, I'm not sure how to get it.